Up — or out? — here:
a problem of preposition,

my uneasy relation
with the world. Whether I’ m

above it or apart. On the other side
of the latched glass door, a man

loves me. Worries. Calls my name.

•

Where — for art — thou-
sands of windows go dark

in slow succession. On Essex
and Ludlow and Orchard.

A thousand times goodnight.

•

A boy throwing stones at a window.
Right window, wrong boy.

•

“Is there no balm in Gilead?” So cries
dour Jeremiah in granite tones.
“There is a balm in Gilead,” replies
a Negro spiritual. The baritone

who chants it, leaning forward on the platform,
looks up, not knowing his voice is a rainstorm
that rinses air to reveal earth’ s surprises.
Today, the summer gone, four monarch butterflies,

Chieftain Iffucan of Azcan in caftan
Of tan with henna hackles, halt!

Damned universal cock, as if the sun
Was blackamoor to bear your blazing tail.

Fat! Fat! Fat! Fat! I am the personal.
Your world is you. I am my world.

You ten-foot poet among inchlings. Fat!
Begone! An inchling bristles in these pines,

Bristles, and points their Appalachian tangs,
And fears not portly Azcan nor his hoos.

Things happen when you drink too much mescal.
One night, with not enough food in my belly,
he kept on buying. I’ m a girl who’ ll fall
damn near in love with gratitude and, well, he
was hot and generous and so the least
that I could do was let him kiss me, hard
and soft and any way you want it, beast
and beauty, lime and salt — sweet Bacchus’ pards —
and when his friend showed up I felt so warm
and generous I let him kiss me too.
His buddy asked me if it was the worm