At last, my love has come along (Etta James with two clichés)

She sounds angry

the bridge is useless

She sounds peevish

And life is like a song

I can’t do my job
to recreate for you

swelling strings

When she won’t sing
like she means it. Absolution

apparently runs a close second
to interpretation. And here we are in heaven: That means

you have to . . . “listen with your heart?”

Your “heart”
sounds hot and angry too. Listen to that. “Listen to your heart.”

How Spooky Is It

Standing on a rutty road
mid-winter thaw

I recall once being told
“you’re in a rut”—

How spooky it is even now
to pull anything out of the water

an old TV set
the cord a drag

Presumably it is all for the best

We are the quietest neighbors
anyone on the planet

could ask for
Better than fun

is quiet

anyone could ask for

I approach a purchase

adore my children—
back away—
that they revere ugliness

the rainbow bag
that holds a smaller
rainbow bag

I just forgot! (isn’t
that a scream)
to stand outside

the vault of apt

comparison.

Man Tits

Look at that pair,

on the one over there.
He's young, skinny, low
muscle tone, poor, white, under-
educated . . . not looking
at a
path

on the little patch
of yard in front of his
unfavorably located
rental where he stands, hands
on hips, mutable, conceivable
speculation on the next weekend
chore.

But his tits are the good
kind: fat, conical, pale against
the brown of his wife-beater tan,
nipples slightly shiny,
aureolated. Bouncy, native tits
like the ones you like to see.