In the wintertime I keep a stick of butter on the stove to soften it, at which point I eat it like a banana.
But in July, in this heat, butter simply evaporates wherever I keep it. And I evaporate.
And we are joined as one in the burning heavens.
When you finally fall in love with cars
You fall in love with the premature idea
Of your own mortality.
It gets a dash of style and spectacular value.
You and yours, the rain, the train behind
It.
You are safe in the practice of departure.
Safe in the changing air.
By now I'm almost gone.
Between the tan hair and ashen end
I was finely dealt with.
I could elevate the moment and say,
"But I rise",
But I don't rise.
So many of us committed suicide at the same time
That memory eased up a bit, used only first names--
Nicknames for the Johns .
Nicknames for the virgins.
I used to look up at night to the coin of sky above the well where
I wound up.
As if counting out along with me I would with Them catch the feathers that fell where
Individual ribs should have been.
And with each I would remind myself that I to it--not it to I
Was close to a captive mercy,
or answer.
