I keep telling myself, asshole,
You have this much time, and this much
Money to get it all done.
Imagine, okay, the Devil.
He is clean and red and you can smell ginger.
His G-d is your G-d so no surprises there—
But the way he looks at you says everything
About how he uses his belt. And he
Never seems to remember you.
They’d rather lick the clock clean than help me.
Two statuettes complement one another
In my living room.
One is a Goddess of the art deco.
The other one is empty.
The wounds of my judge lie open
I mop but blood abounds. He sees
Me, he remembers me—
And every morning he awakens and he
Drinks a cold lake of brandy. Once he’s done you can see a depression in the mud where maybe
A meteor landed—or a great beast fell
Fighting for its life. Through the
Sinews of his unconsciousness he sees me
In the quiet of my room.
There are moments after sunset
Off the clock
When I find a mouse Tinto killed while
I was at work. I don’t dream about misery.
I dream about Tinto sitting in the pelvic bough
Of a peach tree,
He’s looking down at me with his grey poem
Left by the couch.
And I am the bounty.
A pulpy pink thing came calling
Between my first and third fingers.
Suddenly, I thought I imagined it.
But in the mirror, dystrophied by the sunset
This expression was exactly as I remembered it,
Reversed and less temperamental.
