Living

All things belie me, I think, but I
look at them though. Well boys, at
least you’ re not dead, right? What’ s
the date today? Until something. What?
Of the lady of the whitening blow.
I’ m ashamed to keep on babbling
as if I’ ve always been oneself,
diamond flow through. Humble
flannel skeleton. Grin, laugh unbecoming
Living at the bottom of the water may
have been obvious all the time. But
I forget. What’ s my plot? Hand
of a child, paw of an animal. Paint
it red & make a pawprint in the psalter.

Purportedly a chain of civilians, soldiers, voices
lice they were called. It is sometimes sufficient to beg
Lice creeping over one, kill them with a chemical;
then there are lice-ghosts everywhere. Glints of pearly
nails. The light of my beloved will keep me from noticing.
Trailer to keep her in; he asked me if I knew her ‘auction name.’
Walked over the scorch; what are values when there’ s nothing here?
The wing of a dead soul grows into all the lace you see through,
foreigner, lice-ridden article of divestment. Splendid vices

This may sound queer,
but in 1985 I held the delicate hands
of Dan White:
I prepared him for burial; by then, Harvey Milk
was made monument — no, myth — by the years
since he was shot.

I remember when Harvey was shot:
twenty, and I knew I was queer.
Those were the years,
Levi’ s and leather jackets holding hands
on Castro Street, cheering for Harvey Milk —
elected on the same day as Dan White.

After the jostling on canal streets
and the orchids blowing in the window
I work in cut glass and majolica
and hear the plectrum of the angels.

My thoughts keep dwelling on the littoral
where china clocks tick in the cold shells
and the weeds slide in the equinox.

The night is cold for love,
a chamber for the chorus
and the antistrophe of the sealight.

The ants came
to investigate
the dead
bull snake,
nibbled
at the viscera
and hurried off
with full mouths
waving wild
antenae.

Moths alighted,
beetles swarmed,
flies buzzed
in the stomach.

The old man
drew the line
for his son,
the executive:
“I don’ t want you spending money on me!
(not as long as there are fathers)”,
the line ageless
as the independence of time.
Musters tears
and overflows
the inner ear,
yet does not matter.
It can not cure frailty.

I
The chemist creates
the brazen
approximation:
Life
Thy will be done
Sun

II
Time to garden
before I
die —
to meet
my compost maker
the caretaker
of the cemetery

I married

in the world’ s black night
for warmth
if not repose.
At the close —
someone.

I hid with him
from the long range guns.
We lay leg
in the cupboard, head
in closet.

A slit of light
at no bird dawn —
Untaught
I thought
he drank

My mother saw the green tree toad
on the window sill
her first one
since she was young.
We saw it breathe

and swell up round.
My youth is no sure sign
I’ ll find this kind of thing
tho it does sing.
Let’ s take it in

I said so grandmother can see
but she could not
it changed to brown
and town
changed us, too.

What horror to awake at night
and in the dimness see the light.
Time is white
mosquitoes bite
I’ ve spent my life on nothing.

The thought that stings. How are you, Nothing,
sitting around with Something’ s wife.
Buzz and burn
is all I learn
I’ ve spent my life on nothing.