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We gaze into your eyes, eyes, eyes, eyes. We forget the display is blind. Your fanned tail really a cupped palm, gathering each hen’s quiver to your ear, your feathers the green-blue glamours of reflective absence. No one ever praises the ass of the peacock, grin of quills that does the heavy lifting, or how you eat anything from ants to Styrofoam, from cheese to chicken. Road roamer, flower devourer: the one who’ll pick a fight with a goat. Preen all you want. What I love of you will be the bare undercarriage, the calamus. I am done with beauty. Only a blinking eye can measure the light.

Clarice, the Swiss Appraiser, paces our rooms, listing furnishings on her yellow legal pad with a Waterman pen, a microcamera. Although I've asked why we have to do this, I forgot the answer. The answer to why is because, inscrutable, outside of logic, helpless, useless because. Wing chairs, a deco lamp, my mother's cherry dining table—nothing we both loved using looks tragic. Most nights now I sit in the den reading the colorful spines of your art books, Fra Angelico to Zurburan, volume after volume of Balthus, Botticelli, Cezanne, Degas, Michelangelo, Monet, Titian, Velasquez. Friends. An art school's asked for them— after all, they have no "real" value now, except to me.... Upstairs, Cerise—is that her name?—gasps at the bentwood chaise, the blonde moderne bedroom "set" my parents bought on their two-day Depression honeymoon in Manhattan. I know this has something to do with paying taxes. Last night, a real icy February zero, I went out to start the engine of the car you gave me on my birthday, to keep it going, then came in and forgot it till this morning. I woke to the city's recycling truck grinding my papers and plastic bottles and my motor running. And still, I wasn't out of gas, Our neighbor, his head in a red bandana, yelled, "We didn't want to bother you at one in the morning!" and I thought,How did you know I wasn't in there, suiciding? Cerise means "cherry," Clarice means "light" or "famous"— is her name Clarissa? What is she saying? She's blurring, she looks like a Candice, she looks nice enough, but I'll defer judgement until she's finished this business. If I let on I felt sad, remember my mother's advice? "Everyone should collect something!" That was her path to the purpose-driven life, along rows of a flea market, then alone in her house jammed with the nicked, the chipped, ceramics with dings, the inscribed wedding bands of strangers— damaged things that always needed gluing or polishing. I tried not to teach our children the world's a dangerous place, but there we were, four of us, plunked into history, listening to Dylan. Then, two of us. Our son and daughter out in it, unafraid, purposeful.... Somehow, life veered from the script. I should get a new cell phone, but eighteen of your messages are in/on my old one and can't be transferred. How can Verizon say your voice isn't really in there at all, calling home to me?—Then where is it? Why should it disappear from somewhere is unapparently isn't? Why should my living here be so metaphysical? Callista enters our bedroom, the room sacrosanct to me, off-limits, but no matter. She scans our night tables, our TV, our pills and lotions and clippers. Oh, morning here you'd perform what you'd call your "ablutions" while I read the paper in bed. Pearl slinks from her place on my pillow, Bogey's hunched in the clothes closer on your shearling slippers, Hosni Mubarak's been deposed, Benghazi's a riot of freedom until the Khadaffis say it isn't. The day you died,  I knew what people meant by saying the earth stopped spinning on its axis. No choice but to write myself, to keep going. Today's Science Times s ays we're not in the Garden of Eden anymore— well, that shouldn't give evolutionary biologists pause. Life, says the geologists, is a natural consequence of geology. Geology? I know there's got to be more to be written. Clarissa, Clarinda, Career, whatever your name is, pack up your digital camera, your officious watery pen, your scrutineer's notepad, you're in the wrong biosphere, your data will never add up—Clarity, I think we're done here.

This is my cap, this is my overcoat, here is my shave kit in its linen pouch. Some field rations: my dish, my tumbler, here in the tin-plate I’ve scratched my name. Scratched it here with this precious nail I keep concealed from coveting eyes. In the bread bag I have a pair of wool socks and a few things that I discuss with no one, and these form a pillow for my head at night. Some cardboard lies between me and the ground. The pencil’s the thing I love the most: By day it writes verses I make up at night. This is my notebook, this my rain gear, this is my towel, this is my twine.

Feeling rich for one moment for using money as a bookmark Feeling deceitful for making public some opinions while neglecting others Feeling disordered at the sight of three statues conspiring in a row Feeling insufficient for having a lukewarm reaction to news Feeling important for having been offered a seat at the table Feeling apologetic for nonetheless tuning out an argument Feeling blue for identifying some people who don’t respect you Feeling like a knife slipping into a pool of water for bearing 
disagreement Feeling redundant for moving in a similar direction as others Feeling angry for imagining the opening of the passage yet 
unopened for you Feeling antisocial for declining further missives from home

To John Bernard Myers In the corner lot where they parked green banana trucks fruits palmed in paper straw I smell bedbug & kitchen-cockroach summer afternoons Somewhere tailless one-eyed cats doting in fat garbage cans screaming with the stench of rice & beans strawberry tampax piled high as the smell (I was small & slick) the covers tilted like the hat of a rock-look wino in a deep knee-bend nod on a beer can-street Sunday morning There were always time-thick empty nights of nothing to do but listen to the ethereal (she lived on the top floor) I-go-for-more screams of Charlie's pimp's woman when he beat her for his good business principles joy-pop the block with morning-talk I hear the dim iron dawn yawning (I lived on Third Ave.) rattle nights into Saturday morning flag-bloomer eclipses just before the hunt— they were as big— the cats like jungle bunnies fierce with fleas & sores I see window-people hanging out of gooey-stick slips sweating strange below-the-button drawers crouched junkies in hallways with monkey backs eating cellophane bananas on a g-string waiting for that last bust Spies with cock-comb hair fronts ear-gulping mambo music eye-lapping pepperican flower crotches I can hear the streets whispering in the ears of yelping kids in the fun-gushing that rippled my blood in the pump but the kids are dying in the lot like the tarry-blown feet of the rain jingling on the rusty-green of yesterday's fire-escapes.

“What can or ought the public care about the identity of the portrait?” said James McNeill. Did he look down from neutral heaven on the dealer wearing flannel plaid, adjusting to my denim chair, to make the arrangement, pocket my check in black and smudge and white? The agents said they could easily find it if I had no carbon. FBI with their silk knots and sober suiting just like the famous oil though on different body parts. I could be Mrs. Whistler, but I was the dupe, eyes lowered, the menswear pair noble shadows, tracking down the evil and clever eBay forger (not the original cormorant-tousled Martinez I thought I was purchasing with his true (M) mark from his 19th-century hand). Inspectors with their pointed interrogations — they were way beyond clues — who when they left would form, and be, long shadows at each end of day. Make shapes you might assume would fall from mountain goats in frightening terrain. They reported answers they knew all along. Thigh-high in paintings, I thought to wade out with my honest eyes so little notorious, from mistaken tonalists, expressionists, Society of Six ... The crook posed in tartan, I fine-tuned to the agents; he talked ordinary — that was my best judgment. So what? He warmed, and got richer in, my denim wingback. I thought of Anna’s stern profile; and were they profilers? And as they shook my hand good-bye, I said, Do your wives collect anything? What do you think? they implied.

INSIDE THE GATEWAY: 1970S RED CLOGS WITH SIDE BUCKLE The forever shoe,  which  points  homewards,  belongs to  my  mother. When our house was  being built, she stepped onto the  driveway while the tarmac was still wet, still setting. Ever since that step, the driveway, which slants upwards,  bears an imprint of her 1971 footwear. Her foot- print says,Climb!  Come with me. Whoever steps into that impression becomes,  for a moment, the leggy wearer of a fire-red clog with a pirat- ical silver buckle on the side. OUTSIDE THE TEMPLE: GOLD AND SILVER SANDALS The  sandals  which  will  make  a  female of me belong to many women. The   front  of  the  temple  entrance  hides itself behind shoe-racks. Vis- itors   enter  barefooted,  leaving   behind  the  dung,  dried frogs, spilled petrol  and  ketchup  traces  of  the  streets.  Hundreds  of  pairs  of  gold and  silver  sandals wait  here  for  the  women  who will re-emerge from the  vigil  with  the  taste of  basil  leaf and sugar in  their deep-breathing mouths  and  carpet  fibres between  their  toes.   The  sandals,  gold  and silver,  seem all alike.  How  can the women tell them apart? They do tell them apart. It  is  as if  each  pair  sings an  intimate mantra to its  owner, audible  only to  her. One day I too shall return to expectant slippers that stack  up  like the  moon  and  the  stars  outside a  marble  building;  one day I shall not have to wear child's shoes. SUNDAY BEFORE SCHOOL: WHITE SNEAKERS Seven  years  of these shoes are a chemical memory.  The Convent ruled that  pupils' shoes  must  be white: absolutely white.  Who  can  imagine a  1980s  shoe  that  was  absolutely  white,  without  any  logo,  with  no swoosh,  not  a  single slogan?  Sunday evenings, before the school week, I  crouched  down  on  the  pink  bathroom  tiles  and  painted  my  shoes into  the  absolute  of  whiteness;  like  the  Alice  in Wonderland garden- ers  repainting  roses.  This  task  was  performed  with a  toothbrush and with  special  paste that annihilated so many design features.  Purity was attained  by  the application  of  a whitener  that  stank  of scientific poly- syllables.  Convent-girl  identity.  Tabula rasa.  Toxicity  and intoxication: with  good  intentions,  getting  high on paste. BAD MARRIAGE SHOES: SILVER BALLET SLIPPERS When I met my ex, I was  already  committed to heels: black ankle  boots  with  four-inch  stacks for  walking through snow;  French  cream curved suede  stilettos for scaling fire-escape  ladders  on to  rooftops  to  admire the  winter  sky;  even after I  left him,  scarlet satin  bedroom-only  spiky mules  to  amuse myself.  Early  on, my ex  said that the way women walk in  heels  looks ugly.  And my  nails  made  unnatural  social appearances: emerald  lacquer;  cobalt;  incarnadine. Sign of a  bad  marriage:  I  began to  wear  flats. The penitential  mermaid shoes,  worn once and once only, were  a Gabor creation: distressed  silver  ballet  slippers  with netted and criss-cross side  details  which  would  make  the material  seem  to  swish with  the changes  of  light on feet that go walking.  Cool  as  moonlight on a  tourist  coastline. But the  inner  stitching  hooked  the  softness  of  my skin, which  has  always  been  too  soft;  but  I could not turn back, for we had  tickets  to an evening  of  Mozart;  but the paper tissues that I stuffed into  my  shoes  failed to act as  a  protective   lining.   Paper  tissue  snow- flecks  teardropped  with crimson  blood created  a  trail  behind  me  as  I ascended  the  many  tiers  of  the  wedding-cake concert hall. BAREFOOT: PEARL PINK POLISH Sitting  next  to someone  can  make  my  feet  curl:  shy,  self-destructive and  oyster-like, they want to  shuck  their cases,  to  present  themselves, little undersea pinks; their skin  still  is  too  soft, their  toes still too long, their  ankles still too slender, for a modern fit. But he  is not modern;  he sits like stone, and my bare feet are cool, they will not have to bleed.

* Lime coats the thick sheaf of paper crossed by thin, parallel lines of a darker green. They approximate the rippling surface of a river pregnant with water and smoothly traveling towards an orb of sea salt. His pen is a black crow against a sunlit sky. Its ink is harsh, blotting paper, even with the neat economy of motion in how the ink is laid. For a moment, a golden spark glints from a cufflink struck by a sun ray. Meticulously, the ink travels from point to point, dipping, then rising, then dipping again until it is halted by one of the four walls of a square. The paper mottles. He lays the pen besides the projection of a likelihood as an ache begins between his shoulder blades. As he rolls his head in a circle, he considers the placement of a decimal point. Lastly, he considers the definition of a percentage to be the probability of error instead of the probability of an answer’s relevance. * It seems a secretary with large hair is shuffling until he notices that it is only a tight skirt hampering her thighs. He begins to feel the papers stacked on a crudenza curling their edges to protest being ignored. A lock of hair falls in front of his eyeballs and he notices a white feather. He immediately comprehends how long it has been since scissors tip-toed about his scalp. Bereft, he looks at his desk and is astonished at how still his fingers lie atop a yellow pad—he would have sworn his fear would have left his empty palms quaking at how time is consistently ending. * He looks up to be surprised at midnight “a done deal.” His hands seek release and he wipes them against the pin-striped wool encasing his thighs. A woman with a blurred face atop a blue silk shirt pops her head through the door. He knows she is speaking but his gaze cannot locate the source of the buzzing. He feels a fleeting thought of inebriated bees, how they might blunder with pollen gratuitously. His gaze falls to the circle of diamonds on her left, blue-veined wrist. He takes a chance and replies, “Yes.” It is sufficient to make her go away so that all that remains across his threshold is the shadow of a door. He feels he must complete the job by shutting a door but he is so tired. * Was I ever a boy? he asks himself as he watches the Chairman hold hands with his tall wife. The wife smiles but it is clear she is dangling her legs over a pedestal. When he reaches them for an obligatory greeting, he realizes (without being surprised at the certainty of this thought) that she smells expensive. He hears her emerald earrings tinkle like wind chimes. His breath is the breeze against her pale, seamless skin. She smiles at him and he feels even smaller. His breath is the flutter of a Trochilidae’s wings. When he next turns to the Chairman, he is buffeted by the Chairman’s smug grin. * He tattoos his fingerprints on the most random of surfaces. It happens that way each morning when he must read six newspapers beside The Wall Street Journal. One is in Japanese. Another in German. He cannot recall the last time he was lucid. He cuts himself shaving whenever the mirror reminds him that his eyes are covered by red cracks. They remind him of bigger faultlines just waiting to widen. He knows he will fold into himself during the fall. He feels that avoidance should be under his control. But it is not happening and he is often immobilized by this failure. * I should fall in love, he thinks, as he reads a worn newspaper clipping. It has traveled throughout the firm and reached him at last. He flinches at the leers clinging to the message. His fingers feel wet though the clipping is dry. The clipping is about Alan “Swift” Thiessen, the man who once sat in an office down the hall. Once, Swift was a tight muscle tightly sheathed in Italian suits with double-breasted blazers, a sartorial sun amidst the human commodities forging together a partnership. It was an eccentricity allowed by Swift’s ability to bleed rain from desiccated clients. Once, Swift also played squash every day. Now, Swift is clad in rough cotton and measures each passing moment in a jail, staring at rust and bricks. The newspaper reports how Swift went too far with a young, blonde boy sheathed in leather with metal studs. Still, The Investment Banker suggests to himself that he fall in love. Despite Swift’s ignominious end, he feels that Swift still bested him by having felt certain compulsions about which he can only remain curious. * At 4 a.m. he is not displeased to be alone walking the streets. At 4 a.m., he feels that the hour offers a certain excuse for his loneliness. Now, he is walking in the aftermath of an unseasonal rain so that the light is clean and the pavement shines from the wash of water. The tall buildings conspire to maintain sufficient lights to surround him like Christmas. He notices a white flower in a bud vase by a window he passes. It is unexpected but pleasing and he pauses to think,Hello! He knows he is imagining things but he senses the flower open its petals a tad wider. His nostrils flare at the inexplicable perfume of jasmine. He looks forward to winter when snow will cover the city. Even in a blizzard, the snow is constant. They never fail to cling softly to him as he walks in their midst. He feels,It is such a loving feeling.

For Alicia The bird who creaks like a rusty playground swing the bird who sharpens the knife         the bird who blows on the mouths of milk bottles         the bird who bawls like a cat like a cartoon baby         the bird who rubs the wineglass the bird who curlicues         the bird who quacks like a duck but is not a duck         the bird who pinks on a jeweller's hammer They hide behind the sunlight scattered throughout the canopy At the thud of your feet they fall thoughtful and quiet coming to life again only when you have passed Perhaps they are not multiple         but one a many-mooded trickster         whose voice is rich and infinitely various         whose feathers liquify the rainbow         rippling scarlet emerald indigo         whose streaming tail is rare as a comet's         a single glimpse of which is all that you could wish for         the one thing missing         to make your eyes at last feel full to meet this wild need of yours         for wonder

La poesie vit d’insomnie perpetuelle —René Char There’s a sickness in me. During the night I wake up & it’s brought a stain into my mouth, as if an ocean has risen & left back a stink on the rocks of my teeth. I stink. My mouth is ugly, human stink. A color like rust is in me. I can’t get rid of it. It rises after I brush my teeth, a taste like iron. In the night, left like a dream, a caustic light washing over the insides of me. * What to do with my arms? They coil out of my body like snakes. They branch & spit. I want to shake myself until they fall like withered roots; until they bend the right way— until I fit in them, or they in me. I have to lay them down as carefully as an old wedding dress, I have to fold them like the arms of someone dead. The house is quiet; all night I struggle. All because of my arms, which have no peace! * I’m a martyr, a girl who’s been dead two thousand years. I turn on my left side, like one comfortable after a long, hard death. The angels look down tenderly. “She’s sleeping,” they say & pass me by. But all night, I am passing in & out of my body on my naked feet. * I’m awake when I’m sleeping & I’m sleeping when I’m awake, & no one knows, not even me, for my eyes are closed to myself. I think I am thinking I see a man beside me, & he thinks in his sleep that I’m awake writing. I hear a pen scratch a paper. There is some idea I think is clever: I want to capture myself in a book. * I have to make a place for my body in my body. I’m like a dog pawing a blanket on the floor. I have to turn & twist myself like a rag until I can smell myself in myself. I’m sweating; the water is pouring out of me like silver. I put my head in the crook of my arm like a brilliant moon. * The bones of my left foot are too heavy on the bones of my right. They lie still for a little while, sleeping, but soon they bruise each other like angry twins. Then the bones of my right foot command the bones of my left to climb down.