Over our heads, trailing a wake of air
and an enormous shadow as it passed,
the falcon glided to its trainer’s fist
and settled like a loaded weapon there.

Then, while she fed the bird bit after bit
of... what? rabbit? the trainer gave her talk:
These birds, she said, prey on the small and weak,
adding for the children’s benefit

that this, though it seems cruel, is really good
since otherwise the other rabbits, mice,
squirrels, what have you, would run out of space
and die of illness or a lack of food.

XI

1

_______________

Having once taken the plunge the situation that preceded it becomes obsolete which a moment before was alive with malignant rigidities.

2

________________

my mouth a cunt in reverse and my guts, nuts.
I nose the dark nursery, belly for my dick spurting ink at shit.

Fire. Arrow.
Water. Shadow.
you know no kid’ s name a word, but some shit-to-do.
no kid ain’ t shit but a map to its folk
traced by its folk to where they buried their folk.

took that shit that made me to make me make myself myself,
rolled in on papa’ s red nuts like they a fucking chariot.

•

these days my guts stay aching. my head an empty crib.

Love is the kindest
expression
of absence —

Or else
is a day
by the river,

in which by
motion
it becomes clear —

there have been
in an hour an
infinite train

of rivers, & which
did you want
to see? One

comes slowly
to realize
there is no evading things

(the heart will have
its way, though
its will go

unfulfilled),
& there is no shame
in this.

The pleasures in this world —
soft breeze, soft
thighs, a bit of music,