reeds by the lake and the clay
two little swifts one over
one under the other
red clay / the day detests
hot light in the hot sky
haze and the light waits
to come down / particulate
the hot sky waits to get at us
beautifully they picnicked on the point of an island
named after kings swans or something
pretty like that
and the wind across plastic glasses sang a
raspberry almost froze the police in a rubber boat going fast
pretty like that
and then I walked home quick
whose neighborhood bliss of ignorance white glass traced side mirror smashed
pretty like that
spring light on a cold tin roof
it happens when the seasons change
the body’s molecules all rearrange—an itchy feeling—
you see the place as it has always been or
entirely monstrous! frost–killed glory
the people under the rug
the ants in constant streaming lines
the roads you couldn’t dream of crossing
the close rhyme of venal and vernal
anyway, a little song to end on:
IF YOU HAD A HEADLAMP LIKE A MINER
IF YOU HAD AN EARTAG LIKE A COW
IF YOU HAD A SCHEDULE LIKE A MOTHER
IF YOU HAD A LIST OF FLOWERING TREES
Saucer Magnolia
Southern Magnolia
Sweetbay
Crapemyrtle
Flowering Dogwood
Eastern Redbud
In late June in the capitals I slept on different pillowcases
Smelling the detergents they use in the capitals
The question is what do they do to merit living
I mean afford
It is pleasant and the roses growing in the front-yard patches
A big yew tree the nightbirds the elegant streets
The question is who does your money come from
The question is whose loss
The question is whose loves are torn like wet paper for your money
Whose lines are crossed by it
Who can’t live the thing she wants which is good and reasonable
Because of your money
The nightbird sings away beside a white rowhouse
Your money makes someone want to work all the time
Turn your other cheek on your clean stripey pillowcase it smells
Like detergent like your door closed to the outside of the capital city
The white roses in the dark green leaves coming up over the red brick wall
It is a garden it is a cycle of toxic violence it grows
Violence or at least nothing to eat, nothing at all
•
It is a garden whose real lives are distanced
In function of your money
Who among us after all has no pillow
In the evenings they seal themselves up
When the sky turns pink
In the evenings they emerge and laugh
As the sky turns pink
The empty stores are ways for your money to make more of it
When could we emerge into the evening just to be there
For example your money holds multiple people in a space for a while
They could dwell and multiply and need your money
Your money has no border so it makes one where it goes
Otherwise you could pay to drink champagne by the border
In a leather booth beneath the big sky turning pink
In late June it is cold in the capitals but people flock there for the skies
In late June it is cold but people have flocked anyway to make you money
In late June it is cold but your money has gathered all the people there
To make you more
How is it still light out
•
Whose lives are rubbled Whose rubble Never mind
For your money Whose What is drowned exhausted
Is fished out Is asphyxiated by the air Is slowly
Finished by the air is acid in the water in the food
The money fishing in your toxic money Breathing
In your bed The money ‘til it suffocates Is separated
By your money Is detained by it and for it Is mined
Is killed for
•
In late June in the capitals I can confirm
Your money is a thing and thriving
Late the late June evening and the sky turns pink
Jasmine the white roses some purple things I don’t know how to name
In the capitals one day will your money fall silent
Ever and the bird who sings at night will sing
In the capitals your money rising and the roses
The rubble the stores and everything is brimming full