4917. AND NOW I HAVE TO DO ANOTHER THING

AND NOW I HAVE TO 

DO ANOTHER THING
Here are my hands, you gutter-thief. I can't
give anything back from all you've taken
from me  :  made now a helpless scribe,
I'm quite nearly at your mercy again.

4916. THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET
(tiny things I've learned)
And the water-wheel powder, and the causeway
rope and the hay-mow fork and the honey wagon.
Here; does anyway still know this stuff? I'm at a
loss for digging, myself. I'm standing next to Jaymo
the cow - we named her the merry-prankster like
that, she's a hoot - and her monstrous big eyes
are just staring. I think she knows all things, or
at least is on to something. There are snow geese
on the flyline, running their formation now along
the outer forty - a field I'm sure which will someday
be a parking lot like this barn will be a house. Isn't
that something sad, and I'm sure this Jaymo knows it.
Never knowing, never sure, that's my tagline : I'm a
comic character with one crooked leg and an arm for
a nose where character grows. Let me listen again
to the beat of your heart; it tells me so much about
you. A long time ago, in the 1940's (I saw in a photo)
this barn had a big painted ad on the side; really big.
Not for tobacco or razors or anything like that. For some
Dr. Barnhatch's Magic Elixir. Sounds fake, I know, but
I guess it was real. Claimed to 'Cure the Ague.' Even
that, I never knew. Some things remain a mystery I
guess. But not the future. But not the future for sure;
it shows shows up and happens, and will do what it do,
go where it chooses and do it to who. You can't stop
water much when it's running over the dam.

4915. THE KILLING TORCH

THE KILLING TORCH
Light the fires Rubenstein, let's go up to
the attic. You can read your Yeats and
I can read my Auden. I'll hoi-polloi the
potato soup for you, and you can unwrap
the pillage and the scone. Tea or coffee,
we'll figure out later, when the girls comes
over. How's that go, 'you take Betty, I'll take
Sue'? Quit tapping on the ledge, you make
me nervous. Quit tapping on the ledge,
you really make me nervous.

4914. HEDGEMONT

HEDGEMONT
Driving the car from the Battery Tunnel, there were
two guys I saw walking backwards with shades of
glee - one was holding a paint-bucket in his hands
and the other dragged a drop-cloth from his knees.
I slowed down to ask if they wanted a ride - they
exclaimed, 'No; this was part of our deal.'
I said okay, and sped away.
-
I really wanted to ask, 'Why would you let
the man from the Marlton Hotel do this to you?
Slave labor like this is entrapment for sure.'
-
Sometimes a lazy day is nothing but that - a
lazy day in all respects. My own way, that of a
radical man's descent, went instead to thoughts
of Zabriskie Point, that film where, after a huge
sex session in the desert sand, everything at
the end of the film is just shown being blown
apart, in movement, everything in smithereens.

4913. MOVIERAMA

MOVIERAMA
The newsreel dips like a carnival clown
telling fortunes to the blind and the lame.
The three dour ladies are sipping their sodas and
clapping back to shadows on the wall. The footage
is of tanks, and funny, dark men with enormous
rifles. I want to say 'Ghurkas', but just am not sure.
Why do men kill, for the opportunity of themselves,
or others? Never known, never wanted - I think most
still want a nipple, something perfect and solid to grasp.
-
I've a notion this newsreel ends soon. Those ladies
are still in their seats, and I realize (egads!) they're
not ladies at all and I'm older than them by far. What
a shitty life this has been. I've won nothing, and lost
Time. 'Odd and ends, odds and ends; lost time
is not found again.'
-
Here's what I can do - I'll sit back and linger
until the stars meet the sky, until the moon
hits the ceiling, until I've convinced myself it's
the moment to die.

4912. A FREAKISH SON OF MATTER

A FREAKISH SON OF MATTER

The lines I can't remember are the lines I

now forget. I'm forged and broken and confused.

nothing makes any sense, and I don't understand

a word. This was Wednesday, on a bicycle. Tomorrow

is the next day's mistress with the jolly hat to go.

I can't return to a flogging, but the ship I should 

be on, it's gone already and already listing. Sunk

by another noon, under a different moon. (OK, let's

go cheap and say 'and none too soon'). Here's my

Florence Nightingale curtain, out just in time for

you - I took everything down from the windows

just to enjoy the view. I've heard this, once :

'They call me no-show Jones. I'm seldom

never on the stage, singin' my songs. My

whereabouts are unknown.' And now,

and now - I want to have a fancy

dinner with a saint, though I really

eat nothing at all. A few grains of

rice, in a bowl of scented water.

You want I should make the call?

4911. ESCAPING THE ESCARPMENT OF A LARGELY BELEAGURED TIME

ESCAPING THE ESCARPMENT 

OF A LARGELY 

BELEAGUERED TIME
My heavy-gird anchor has sunk me, it seems;

I am sinking to the bottom of a cold, dark sea.
There's a God who comes to visit me - says
little and doesn't have to swim to stay afloat. 
All this, while I am drowning. There's no care
like a Regent's care - who owns the keys,
where are the papers, and what lands are we
allowed to hunt on? Pathetic stuff, like a God

having to ask His people if He's really the Ruler
of all things. Ah, what's the use anyway?

-

The silver slippers of the sun just make me

think of that girl's negligee, nearly unseen and
transparent, working wonders at the Boy Scout
camp. A regular jamboree, a well-lit fire to the
campers to see, a place to bed down for the
night. The lean-to of the heart; the tepee
of everything we'd wish to see.
-
So, now, just let me run away; open up that
lock and key, you old, land-lubbing geek of a
God. I am tired. Iam quiet. I am but one,
when in truth I need a mob. Break down

these errant walls, and let's build a
trestle of bones and muscle 
and blood instead.

4910. STRONG DELILAH

STRONG DELILAH

She sings a panted revelry of stars

and stripes and bombs. The heat of

torrid romance burns the bottoms of

her hems, leaving ashes as she walks

along. Remember 'Torch Song Trilogy'?

She's something like that.

-

The matter of mucous is a doctor's rant -

to her it's an interference of voice and

breathing. Divas take heart! She coming

back for the morrow to teach one more

song. Tra-la-la to all that.

4909. BLACKSPUR

BLACKSPUR

The man running hides to the tanner, he

knows the very last clue : that cigarette

dangling from his charred face, the hat

on his head, askew. We mention the

intangible motives of passion and crime

only when we must. Lawmen have no

conscience. Yet, here is Detective Doyle

again, asking me ten more questions about

the scene of the crime. 'Why, yes, I was there;

delivering pizza to the nudists next door.'

I laughed as he wrote that down.

Outside the loft-building's

doorway, the police car's

lights blinked like some

unending celebration

was now at hand.

4908. I'M SO INTO DEATH I WANT TO LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT

I'M SO INTO DEATH I WANT 

TO LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT

Now the combat crouch  -  two massive kids,

holding automatic weapons; young soldiers

in disguise, working for the government. So

young yet the peach fuzz is still on their balls.

But no matter  -  the clatter and chatter of

command and routine they take to already. They

sleep in their cammo khakis, and walk up for

Reveille when the militant cock crows.

-

Here's my dice, and my dominos, and my little

ratty stories, right on the table for you : Corporal

Malfeasant you can listen at will. Fallujah, some 

small girl with black hair; yeah so what, we all took

a turn. I work for my money and that's what I

earn. In fact, I remember good old Uncle Sam

even taking his turn. Terror or religious war,

take your pick because I don't know what

either are for.

-

Have I told you? I want to live to be a hundred

and ten, and then some if I can. Government

Army pension, maybe a pacemaker or an artificial

heart, some medicine for coming coming in the mail.

Every month, like clockwork I'm set. Life is good,

better than I could ever bet. I'm so into Death I

want to live to tell about it.

4907. TARANTULA DIRECTIVES

TARANTULA DIRECTIVES

(a still life)

I knew Americo Taranto when he

was Superintendent of Schools for

Linden. Then later, I knew his son 

Frank; a teacher or something with

the school system too. I always liked 

how their name was a place - looked 

it up once : Taranto, Italy.

-

Shoe size means nothing when you're

out catching frogs. Sleepy-eyed is the

daughter of want. The kitchen kettle

is zooming in on the still-life of time,

and - not it seems - every strange 

artist wants in on the painting.

-

Dead rabbits hang from nails on the

knotty pine wall while, on the table top, 

arrayed, are two dead pheasants,

a bowl of dreadful looking fruit, a

field-bugle with a woven-thread 

strap, a foxer's cap, and a bowl

of truly destitute-looking flowers.

-

All at once, I want to sing away,

bursting my lungs in song 

and in reverie.

4906. EVERYDAY THAT I GET BEAT UP

EVERY DAY THAT 

I GET BEAT UP

So close I saw the hairs in his face. Those teeth,

like Chiclets chiming. Everyone, it seemed, was

bent on making trouble. The three trucks were

piled up at the curbs. No one could move, no cars

drive around them. Man carries cargo and freight

like sheaves of wheat to a counting office. 

'We want more, we want more.'

-

I watched the groaning man talking, threatening:

'I'll call the police if need be; get this stuff out of

here.' Simple solutions were all everyone desired.

-

The light was feeble and the cold was strong. It

was four degrees, and that was mid-day. When 

I first ventured out this morning, it read 'zero.' 

Such an amazingly fine number; I was proud.

Is it everyday that I get beat up like this?

4905. DARLING KILCAVE

DARLING KILCAVE

I'd like to say I knew the moment when the

morning closed for lunch, but I do not. And

now  -  quite alone  -  the iceman is walking

up the stoop with his ice-tongs in his hands.

He seeks something I never use: water, in another

of its myriad forms. We own the sky by seeding

clouds like we own the night by seeding dreams.

Or, even if all that is the other way around, we share

nice thoughts no matter. Lining the world is a quilt

of passion  -  or so I've found. It keeps me warm 

enough and lets me keep my moments. I want

not for much else, if truth be told. But

only if truth be told.

4904. AND SO

AND SO

And so haul the hammer-claw like a nine-man

posse, paint the mansion new white. Alb and

chalice will have to do : if these fellows refuse

to leave, I don't know what I'll do. The scabrous

one, Nikos, now he's calling for another beer.

My God, this never ends - all those laughing

girls are stringing popcorn, or something like it,

near the cape'd and open doorway. Everyone is

still laughing, but there's a tragedy outside. There's

a tragedy outside, and they won't eve know it. The 

tar and macadam of all we send forth is stalled and

writhing on the ground - for anyone who says

Reality is all we get, this must be so, a majestic

sound. Scoff at nothing, fine fellows! Yes, haul

Nikos another beer! He shall live forever!

4903. COMING ACROSS LIKE STEALTH

COMING ACROSS 

LIKE STEALTH

Run across the heath, Heath, let me know what's

there. I remember only the dark and cloudy days with

some Pink Floyd sadness running around my neck.

I just never really knew  -  all those names and places

 people spoke of - what was me? And who was he?

-

Jesus K. Rist, how old were we then? Nothing new

like a transistor radio in your tooth, or some Challenger

spacecraft picking apart to pieces in the hallowed sky.

Everything was so fucking boring, and then the bombers,

they were still in the air  -  old time waltzing to WWII.

All those crazy veterans, they're now all dead and I'm

hanging around  -  a child of the filthy streets  -  just

trying to remember things anyone had said.

-

They ate jelly candy right from the jars?

They put cinnamon on all their toasts?

Their mothers and fathers all went 

nuts? If that is so, then what's left,

what's been left for any of us?

4902. DRILLING

DRILLING

Not Karen Carpenter again! No, no

the sound itself pierces emotion; and

I want nothing more from that. Let the

town square bell resound : people will

always find a way around.

-

Presumptuous of me to say so, but

not so many people make good sense

anymore. The policeman with his ticket

book, he makes me sad  -  even those

traffic guys, in their little carts, they've

now been found to be on the take

and, thankfully, fired.

-

Today, on the field, I met a girl from

J&J in New Brunswick ; wonderful  creature

she was, and I was enthralled. We talked

about Buffalo (the place) from whence she

came, via Philadelphia too, to New Brunswick.

I told her all about Ithaca, and Cornell, and

Elmira and the Finger Lakes. She said it was

'beautiful' there, and I agreed. Just like that.

-

Hospitable moments and erroneous joys.

'Happiness grows in a circular motion,

life is just a little boat upon the sea?'

4901. SPARROW-FACED

SPARROW-FACED

Within the confines of a very loose fit, those

ambling men walk the platform above raging water :

at the end of a nearby pier, two Spanish locals are

fishing, with a radio running on and their bicycles

chained to the fence. They bend over together, a

unison as if connected Siamese-style. Twins in

the same debauch, intent on stealing a fish

from the sea.

-

In my own life, I've already heard it a few times,

always and each time perplexed : a fishing boat

named the Sea Sparrow, a fish called a sea

sparrow, and a dream out at sea that takes

off and escapes, never to be fulfilled, also

called a sea-sparrow  -  which leaves a

sad sailor, supposedly, sparrow-faced.

4900. HARMONIUM DEVELOPMENT

HARMONIUM DEVELOPMENT

Carry the corpse to the fishtail soup, wring

the neck of the next errant frog, call home on

Tuesday to be sure it's still there. These are

the factors that motivate the indigent and the

sorry. Wag the tail of the car, and start up the

cat; we are going, and leaving soon.

-

I hadn't the moxie to call up your sister, in her

guise as Betsy Ross latter day just to say 'put

a 51st star on that flag, for the state of Stupidity,

OK? I knew she would laugh in my face (and not

leave a trace). So, look, anyway, my '52 Chevy's

parked out back of your lot. Ben Franklin has

still his tri-corner hat. Let's go, now; I can't wait.

-

Traffic is heavy by the Indian restaurant, filled

up now with curry and cider. The line is long,

but all anyone really wants is egg rolls and rice.

Wrong place for that. Wrong line to be in, fella'. 

4899. MAVEN WRITES HOME

MAVEN WRITES HOME

'So this was about Walter and the guy with

the condo overlooking the sea  -  it was all I

could do to stand there and notice what went on.

He was so nice; he had a bread and cake route

down the coast and each morning he'd start out,

about 5:30, with his freshly loaded goods in a

silver-sided delivery truck  - little mom and pop

grocers, gas-station service stores, small office

cafeterias, places like that. Every day, I guess at

least six days a week anyway  -  usually got home

and back again by two-thirty, three. Nice afternoon

time left. Walter would come over; they'd have tea,

or some beer, sit around talk or walk; beachfront stuff,

cheap boardwalk, games of chance. You could tell

they were good buddies. Walter got a new car one

Spring, and they decided to travel west, for a vacation,

but the other guy could never get anyone to spell his

route for him, so they wound up never going anywhere.

No time for vacation time. Walter didn't mind. I don't

know what he did for a living, or for money, if he did

anything  -  he never seemed to go around much. Maybe

he worked from home  -  stuffing and sealing envelopes,

doing telephone work, or online stuff. You know how it is

now. The place they stayed in was nice, pretty and new.

That's pretty much it. One day I heard they were just gone.

One had died, and the other had taken off. You know, really,

I never did find out which of the two had done what. It was

a funny situation like that  -  one big, silent mystery almost.'

4898. LET US...

LET US...

Points-of-light, and salvages. Endings.

We are keepers of the flame and must

never alight from our posts. The ribbed

cages of enclosure, secret forces, enable

our momentous days to co-exist with magic.

For once, the world will not forget. (Engage

the thief, and steal his theft). That shall

become the law of our new world. Here,

all semblance ends : for lines are not

lines, and absences are deeper dimensions. 

The places where hands once grasped, over

and over, become shined by time. Let us

recognize each other then, please.

4897. I AM IN STITCHES AT TWENTY-NINE

I AM IN STITCHES 

AT TWENTY-NINE

To sit here sprawling, fat and scurvied as I am,

means very little. I hold these cards - two black 

aces and a cardinal in a diamond field - from a

deck the likes of which no one has ever seen.

Anyway, that's my own magic, and my own invention.

Call it trick or call it game. Two players play while

only one leaves. Get it? 

-

Here now, seditious and libelous, you are. I hate.

You claim. But, no, no, all these things are mine.

Letting nothing go, fortuitous and happy, my 

circumstances can make me smile only while 

I see you grieving. Like a real estate baron now

giving away lands, I already know the countours.

-

It gets no more magnificent than this : my purloined

tree, she enters, the gate closes, my hand around her

waist, and - and, yes - the rest becomes but cliche.

Do you understand, do you like, my mystery? 

4896. LAMOUNT YOUNG AND HIS FEUDAL ORCHESTRA

LAMONT YOUNG AND 

HIS FEUDAL ORCHESTRA

We make straight for the bleachers and the 

seats in the sun. To watch this occur is a treat :

berrylium bevies of happenstanced leaves, car-parts, 

tobacco and smoke. I feel like a bootlegger, a

hi-jacker, someone who steals for a living.

4895. OF THE GREAT WHITE IMAGE

OF THE GREAT 

WHITE IMAGE

Now to say things tellingly, I take a

few steps forward : much as would a

clown, explaining his balloon trick to 

a roomful of kids. When I myself was

young it seems I never much questioned

those sorts of things; not caring much about

how any clown did what. I stayed silent,

thinking always of other - more weighty - 

things. Then the tambourines flew at midnight,

the coffee-saucers decked their fires and

the brewmasters too, roasting their beans,

came down for a cup. It was as if the angels,

and the demons, each descended from their

religious heights to try and explain their meanings.

If anyone didn't listen, they were severely taxed;

like a Job getting a retribution from his haughy God.

4894. TAD MARCUS

TAD MARCUS

'Yeah, yeah, I'm the one you knew;

the kid from center stage, playing Huck

Finn in some twisted Beatles movie, running

sideways over sand and surf. I walked on water, 

until they shut off the hose. I went to New York

on an ass, and they changed the name of that play

to 'Hick Finn Enters the Big City, Gets Yapped and

Yowed.' Just like a rube, I fell flat on my face.

-

But now I'm coming back baby, entering you as fast

as a bullet on speed, splitting your skull with my fortitude

and aim, noting the last place you've never been. It's

all so simple : dynamic red lips, the place behind the

counter where the counter counts the change but all

things stay the same. Yep, all things stay the same.

4893. OF THE THINGS THAT I LOVE DOING

OF THE THINGS THAT 

I LOVE DOING

(on philip roth / 'American Pastoral)

The dry spot at the corner - where the lace is

filled, the light runs down and the water cloth

still carries its stain - is probably my favorite

downtime spot. The man in the carnival vest who

is speaking vaguely of Jews says, 'of our old

neighborhood Seymours whose forebears had

been Solomons and Sauls and who would

themselves beget Stephens who would in

turn beget Shawns; where is the Jew in that?'

I only overhear in a most - quite lazy - way.

I'm thinking instead of submarines and what

they did for Jews in cans like that? Special

services, special food? Or just nothing at all;

captured with a goy God some few miles 

beneath the sea?

-

When man first found the banana, or the orange,

what were they thinking? This, I can eat? I should

try though it may kill me? Did they give it to a prisoner

first, to eat - some whipped and shackled man they

cared not anything of? Or did they watch a monkey 

instead? Those were the days of big choices. Yes.

-

Now some carriage-monger is waltzing around with

the key to his yellow limo; driving a bunch of party

whores to another night spot to debauch of themselves

what they can upon others. That famed, female jelly-goo

which plays its way along the thigh, that whimper in

a lower-lip at a fine orgasmic contraction. Each person

does with themselves what they may. Life is good, yes?

-

That same jolly man with the Seymours and Sauls is

now sitting down to his seltzer and steak. He wears

his napkin like a fat baby wears its bib. High, and

tight, and rotund - something yellow, again,

with the face of a clown on the front of it.

4892. MY STOCKESMAN'S ALLY

MY STOCKESMAN'S ALLY

Ever at loose in a Philadelphia alley, I want 

to find goodness in a patch of historic ground.

Here is Christ-Church; good enough now. Not 

so far off, Ben Franklin's grave, with all those 

dimes and quarters. It's a far-different world 

from the one I first saw and examined - my 

Manchecker gloves are battling the uncivil 

cold, a Betsy Ross stamp on my letter.

-

I haven't any enemies and I haven't any friends.

All are just purloined co-habitors of a wild

and running furnace - sun-crazed when

burning hot, and ice-to-bones when not.

4891. THE GOLD RUSH

THE GOLD RUSH

Never no mind, you have nothing more,

never no mind; take from me or leave it 

for the next big mistake. I am coiled like 

a snake and wish to meet you now 

along some garden lane.

-

These are the sinecures of my demise :

I am too far gone and have already entered 

the final tent. Being is great, when great is 

the being. I am finding no more to say. 

-

The final token has now closed the bridge;

the bold men are walking with shovels. Three

abreast, they saunter past caves in the wilderness,

shouting for things they have missed : 'Daniel

Boone, Johnny Appleseed, all those who

have gone before us!'

4890. SHANABEST AND TARKINGTON RIDGE

SHANABEST AND 

TARKINGTON RIDGE

(Outside of) the confines of a very strict cage, the

leopard - like some dancer from Kafka, prances and

stalks. A dark and wiry step. At the same moment as

completion arrives, the open book lets fall its pages.

-

Fifteen new homes are lined on the ridge. They've

called it Tarkington - who was a writer, who did exist,

who once walked slowly to a place like this. Now, doors

have taken the place of dreams and opportunities.

-

I wouldn't know the weasel from the shrew. Here by the

railroad shrubbery, along the side of some ill-used tracks,

the weeds have grown long and sad - Winter rips through 

them with an ice and snow that wilts everything in the way.

-

Not much then remains. What shall I call all this?

I like 'Shanabest', for it reminds me of something from 

youth. So then, yes then, forgive me the personal :

here, from Shanabest and Tarkington Ridge.

4889. AND THEN HOW CAN IT BE?

AND THEN HOW CAN IT BE?

That I've had you held sacred, that I tripped the

wrong wire, that I've mired my soul in a tar-pot

of that wrenching wrong? I do not know, for the

last time I was at this impasse everything worked 

fine  -  the water of the lake was clear and blue,

and along the edges the marshgrasses grew. There

was no sound but the loving thud of bullfrog and shrew.

-

Now, the lake is lined deftly with plastic cabins and

new people have littered the stream  -  car parts, 

shopping carts and debris all their own. Even the

sacred sky is yellowish and, at night, so overlit.

I can flee to the mountains, but they too now

ate cluttered with fans and windmills and 

turbines. No bird flies at night.

4888. 2014

2014

As calibrated on the field, tested to the

mettle - so to speak - the gargantuan

new premise of another year comes home.

Tired stuff, dreary thinking. I walk alone.

-

Carrying this gunnysack in times of war

and peace alike, I am sure of nothing more

than knowing I am fraught. The onus bears

me down; walking, nay traipsing through

these seasonal leaves. I want nothing, and

I doubt for even less. This world, I see.

-

It really wants no more - not years nor 

matters nor those personal heads of all

those who would fain speak kindly of

something they themselves have said. 

They slobber; and like geeks, they're all

still seeking a mother, or a father, or

some other reliquary they've lost which

would shelter anew their jagged existence.

-

Alas, New Year, I do not want them. 

I want none of them, nothing.

I wish them gone.

4887. MY OWN GAME WITH DEATH

MY OWN GAME 

WITH DEATH

Having made overtures to the world's own

dousing - the flame that dies down, the

window burnt brown - I figured the sentence

to the key. There is no substance to anything

we see; and I sit alone here, in this tiny, small 

room. My markings are those of a quester.

-

Oh then, I shall : let me riddle this rimrock with

some infinite idea, and then seal it away under

lock and key. The small boys play marbles

with cat's eyes and purees. I shall play my

own game with Death.

4886. EVERY GOD HAD TIME BEFORE

EVERY GOD HAD 

TIME BEFORE

And then the idea just stuck. Each of

those subliminal reservations we live with,

each one is a massive delight to behold.

The world is a constructed box, a platitude 

of latitude and a sequence of shapes. There

can be no other way : Why is a truck body

square? What essential element holds the idea

together (for us, for our thinking) that space

needs hold volume, that volume takes space?

How can any of this be - light beyond light, a

God made that too. And the circle, then, outside

the circle - the one circumscribing all real things.

-

My mind is unfettered, like the shaft of a wing that

makes a bird's flight - the fancy of movement, skidding

so lightly, over air. Even a God had time, before.

4885. MAKE MINE DIFFERENTLY

MAKE MINE DIFFERENTLY

This turn here deserves another : the last time

I visited the place of the ruins, the old silk mills

were vacant, or being turned into other things. All

I had left was purple memory : the silk mill riots and

the Paterson police. They banged heads, long ago,

like the water that ran down the falls. My God,

how so far things have gone and changed.

Disappeared. 'Make mine over, easy,' 

said the diner to the cook. Though I

knew what he meant, talking eggs,

I took it just as much to be about

the disappearance of memories.

-

We all want them made over, easy.

On the tip-top tabletop someone had

spilled the salt and left open the cruet

filled with milk. Sad days, these are : 

outside, a cruel new year's wetness 

soaked this Mother Earth cold.