Confession

for Hank The General’s men sit at the door. Her eyes Are fat with belladonna. She’s naked Except for the small painted turtles That are drinking a flammable cloud Of rum and milk from her navel. The ships out in the harbor Are loosely allied Like casks floating in bilge. The occasional light on a ship Winks. In the empty room of the manuscript Someone is grooming you For the long entrance into the dark city. They’ll hang the General. Then with torches they’ll search for his children. Men and women Are seen jumping from the burning hotel. Journalists, in no hurry, Elect to take the elevator. They walk Out of the building, stepping over corpses. . . You are listening to loud bells. The corpses get up and follow the journalists. It’s unfair that while rehearsing For death they actually succumbed to it. But no one sobs. Shirts and dresses billowing as they fall. Something inhuman in you watched it all. And whatever it is that watches, It has kept you from loneliness like a mob.