END OF THE UNIVERSE IN REVERSE

Spontaneously, families
un-estrange,

don't speak,
can't fight. Like it

or not, everyone grows
closer, looks

cutely blue-
tinted—and everywhere

the idea grows simpler;
letters get wetter

and the math
a lot drier—all around,

the blue-
colored

birds land, dropping
huge mice,

which belly-
flop back into the hot water.

Nothing's
right. Nothing's

the matter;
time's liquefied

so nothing
is really sudden, but

nonetheless, in less
than an instant,

the little bit of
everything

that's left—just
goes white.

ANAEROBIC EXERCISE

If I'm

the torturer, who is the tortured?—Now write

the last line.

OPPRESSIVE

A few steps back
from the stale Milwaukee stop—

the severe
-ly dressed old woman,

in subtle defiance of the
crook in her back,

fords that sheer
abyss that exists between

12:59 and 1 pm—gazing up at
those succoring pictures

in the huge bold posters
(which waggle a little

from the air conditioner)
hung high on the

inside of the
Burger King's windows.

DOUBLE FUGUE

Crisp and busy

city morning—many quick long legs

commute right past



the gold-flecked starling

fastidious pecking—sidewalk cracks

for fresh black ants.

MOVEMENT II.

Undulating vision
of "Moonlight" 

Sonata—
ancient dark cliffs

of such
exquisite grief—

why must your
perfect country

heedlessly
keep rolling? past

its last and
sheerest rock face.

SLICK

how the
ostentatious rustle

of overhead sun-
bleached silver leaves—

like thick rain somehow
thoroughly falling

on a calm and cloud-
less cobalt day—buffers so lovely

the dark
trill of me weeping—

like a
lost and a terribly

private child—sequestered
in the

middle of this
public street.

AVOCADOS

Over time, every 

one must 

collapse.

 

As if by many

serene degrees, one

gradually yields—

 

while another

does not; first, it's

impervious—then 

 

it just rots. But

time itself

glows unremittingly

 

green—

a tear-shaped 

lump

 

that will not 

ever just 

relax.