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Off Course: Ineffable

O small sunlight on the bark which faded before I could finish     my sentence and so changed my sentence in its course, so change me. My course is rotten, I channel Monsieur Berry—who am not     such a man. Then let my form of address or my address withal place me zip code not…

Maintenance

How exhausting it is to be constructed of a thousand parts—or is it several thousand? Even the potato locked in the darkest antechamber has a certain cunning, how it shoots its push to the window’s crack, how it sniffs about for whatever, dirt. You know what I’m saying— don’t make me say it. It’s too…

In Which to Be

Vaporous carousels passing soundless: man on lawn under brother-clouds. Swollen-breasted red robin present then gone, back to pick such reeds with a friend. Beak’s-work done, their cries are hatched, perhaps brought on by the man, perhaps of vectors sprung from the hectic mind that makes a bird’s tail swivel into radians, as if, fast upon…

The Heirs of Onan

The talk show this morning stars those who prefer self-satisfaction to making love with another. Both male and female artists in the tradition of Onan are present in comfortable chairs, quite at home discussing their methods. They often turn to crafted latex, a phallus more reliable than that on a man. And by the way,…

At the Races

never quite buried altogether you and I in summer’s newer-than-new same light groom the dumb breathtaking throng of sprints resigned again to put everything we have on the animal that never comes in

Sonnet

There were lies. You knew, but then forgot the child peeking around the corner, hiding from you. Wind sifts through the beechnut arbor. Peripheral, the real story goes trailing moonlike, behind the car window, just beyond view. And how bad is it to have believed the best of your story, or a lover’s; to have…

The Weather Guy

Hurricane This is scaring us, Hurricane That’s not far behind, And we’re not turning our backs one second. We look at the screen all day. We find Hurricane This still flapping away At the shirt of Tom the Weather Guy. Canada throws an arm around him. Hurricane That just bats an eye. Hurricane This is…

Dead Wood

for Tom Lynch Huge glossy beetles doze in this room, each with a lifted wing-case the size of a car door. They are only fed once, then close themselves with a click. Too heavy to fly in their mahogany and oak, they have grown handles.

Gloomy Sonnet V

There’s no such thing as a rich sex life. Sex is poor. But sex isn’t the only thing That’s poor. Black-eyed Susans and purple loosestrife For instance haven’t got a prayer. The ring She wears causes a certain Platonic sting Like bonsai trees, which make me claustrophobic. Seeing her without it could make the angels…