DESPERATE TO GENERALIZE

I'm writing this to you now,

early on,

at a time when I I still

refuse 

to revise, and I'm

furious 

that I 

hardly know anything, since

by the end, I'm sure 

I'll have 

learned—every lesson
only

applied
to me.

MORE THAN IT HURTS YOU

This is not
a proposition.
A chore
is not

an argument
or some
sort of
opportunity
for dialogue—

I'm only
trying to
do what's
got to
get done.
I swear

I'm just
going to
string you
up fast and
beat you

clean again—like a

rug.
Fuck,

I'm so
worked

up, I
almost

said—
dog.

PEER REVIEW ON A GRECIAN URN

Although I didn't

need to know,

I looked 

again, 

and sure 

enough, the clock

wore a face

of severe 

disfigurement. And then I 

double-checked, and the 

distance between 

here and there

appeared much more 

perilous,

uncivilized, and austere

than either 

cultivated here 

or idealized there. And then it hit me

between the eyes—the truth 

of today

is so savage

and wild
and raw—but 

sheer exhilaration

cannot 

even touch

what's beautiful, not 

by a long

or lovely

shot.

SEVERAL

I guess that this is 

more or 

less how "to be continued"

feels—

before,

the sound 

of your voice 

was less important 

to me than the 

sight of your body. 

But now, as my own

creases 

multiply 

and deepen, 

things tend 

to work better

the other way around.

Now, when I 

write this 

stuff down, 

I usually begin 

with the excellent

(but sensitive)
premise 

that you exist 

in order 

to speak

to me—at best,

a pretty 

severed 

head. I'm almost 

always 

stuck for a 

satisfying ending,

though, but let's 

face it—fairy tales 

have endings,

pony tails

have endings,

conversations—like knives,

just have ends.

And what's an end

really? but  

the latest 

in a series—

of severed 

connections.

SOMETHING ABOUT SALMON

Re-reading cursive descriptions
of all the menu's items
so that I can dutifully rehearse the act
of eating each one,

while across from me, you tear
and fold
a clean white napkin,
methodically reincarnating the same

old paper crane. Floating in
on the gentle confident momentum
of so many repetitions, the prim
waitress performs for us both,

What is it? 
that you—like?

I'm muttering something

about salmon again,

but inside, I'm dumb
and alone

with indefinite
wordless wonderment—how can it be?

that tastes are acquired,
when our guts

are just so desperate
to keep enjoying—

whatever hasn't
deserted them yet.

CAR ACCIDENT

As ever, they keep on driving,
and with her graceful foot on the

gas, she keeps asking him what
the hell it is that he wants.

From deep within the passenger seat, he guesses
it seems to her like what he wants

more than anything—is just
to keep on talking forever. He doesn't

bother to gesture, because she would only
be able to see it peripherally.

He just keeps reiterating vaguely
the hugeness of his terrible feeling

and the futility that haunts his imagining that
anything he might say

could possibly contain it, let alone
begin to adequately describe it. Rounding

the curve now and accelerating
together in a fixed straight line, he doubts

out loud whether explaining this
to her will ever mean the same thing

as doing something about it.
And further, whether whatever he did

could really end up meaning
exactly the same thing

to both of them. A cumbrously air-
conditioned moment later,

he at last manages to imagine
being her, specifically, the exact physical feeling

of her dry lips cracking a little upon parting
to start, but not

finish, the following
sentence—Anything is possible.

PREMONITION

In this hot and 

wavy season of dearth,

when all seems  

as dust 

and the sticky smell 

of dill,

when

your brains have turned

to pure 

nectarines—

bruised

and lately kept artificial-

ly cold

to protect 

and to slow 

the spreading 

blush of

their bruises;

that's 

when

it's just starting to get 

so those 

aspects

you'd been hovering over,

greedy 

to protect,

livid to start

dying over—

are finally 

almost 

ready—

to open up 

into

symbols

worth

living for.