At Length

at a mall, for the first time in years, both a fraction & a multiple, searching
for some compulsory rubbish

for our home until I step outside: some infant rests
in Dead Duck Pose

[all chattering indistinctly]

& airplanes & such 
collide, chandeliers sagging the heavens. Later, here we are, 

sitting in the shade of our mail-order tent
as the forest rots & collapses, 

yet music. The songs we hear coming out from these 
dendritic wrecks 

are songs we’ll never tell. I stutter at the day & here 
we are, titanic 

[engine starting]

in hesitation, 
pedestrian & romantic. Later, my cartoon bride, you & I suddenly 

find ourselves 
in a hotel, using our inside voices, NSFW. We use ourselves up

trying to try to communicate. The implosions of stars are reruns 

on a network 
of reruns. So here we are in our suite, robes presenting 

in the closet, 
the worst of our boxed media flattened & delivered.

We segue, fade out. We jump-cut. Later, here we are, then, 
in a state 

park cabin, our changeling boy in a melt-pile beside us 
in the interior, 

[engine sputtering]

in the interior 
as above again the inviolable light is projected & projected,

plagiarized,
barked into its own expanding darkness. Later, here we are now

at home. 
We’ll end up shutting our windows in a storm. You recite 

the grounding 
exercises; I collect the sharps. Dear everyone else (the world, 

the noise), I’m just not here for advice—the sea receding, 
the twins 

sensing each other, all that shit. There are peaceful periods:
[gun firing]   

trials of famous 
men, pouty beards by candlelight. Run your fingers through

with me & don’t 
wash your hands. Let the fields drift slowly by. If you jump

you will land: we’re prisoners. Bells ring. They often do. Thick, 
audible sucks

of breath. I’m not here. Bells cough, fluttering a new numeral. 
Your testament

[some cheers & applause]

qua the waning 
color & rallying artifice of this portrait, your thrumping sigh

unmanned
into the elbow crook of my coat cotton. This is your pillow, dear.

This is my goddamned face. Low church. Scurry of coins 
across the hard

-wood. Damn it, Lord, I’m resigning to spend time 
with my family.

Our early versions 
of us, bled of their flush, drift slowly by. Damn it. The Babylonians

invent zero. 
We drill for water. Damn it, Lord, if you want to talk, leave a flag in the flower

-pot on the balcony or birdshit on the spire. Julie, you call me
on my day 

off to tell me you just saw a ghost. I believe you & don’t believe you
& maybe 

[people clamoring]

I’m the ghost.
Sky filled with bugs, city of stacked moons, & you, my bride, speak

to a young squirrel
low in a tree as our dog-faced boy eats dirt. You worry. You worry

that your new meds’ll make it harder to come, but you just came
twice this second 

time this afternoon. I come to in the morning after bad sleep. 
You talk

to our dog
-faced boy of the future. I look for any unbroken wine glasses 

& just end 
up filling a coffee mug for you. You end up crying 

[engine sputtering]

& worrying about looking sad & puffy tomorrow. I worry about you
crying or 

cutting & squeeze you to sleep. 
Later, here we are in a hotel in Omaha. I’m cleaning up 

your red wine
fireworks in this bathroom not ours with toilet paper & care. 

I’m insisting you drink water. Imploring water. I’m barely there.
How often 

do I repeat myself? At what point echo avalanche? What’ll get you
kicked out 

of the choir?
Pennies thrown at you. 

I want to tune the radio to the new tune, spatchcocked & unpredictable 
in its news.

I want 
less. I turn off baseball & put on some music. I turn off the music

& return to the news.
My sour smurf, this seems untenable. We’re goners. But 

we’re resourceful. We’ll find a way through this like an inmate 
finding a way

to hang herself. When I start to shave, you towel off my back
& break down.

“What will happen if I’m gone?” you ask. “Who will make sure your back is dry?”

Later, I’m chasing you
down Front St. I’m chasing you down Woodland. I’m chasing you down 

the empty trail.
Our third is crying in the kitchen. I’m chasing you down Higgins. Down

Pulaski. I’m chasing you down Chestnut, down Irving Park, down 
the brown line, 

down the long way, down the last years. On occasion I am here. 
I watch & breathe 

& imagine skies 
unbuckling. I exhale & bilge & gulp & imagine or hope. Signal flare.

There were fireworks last night. Oh-uh-oh-uh-oh-uh-oh. Woke up

 

to a parade in the rain in St. Louis. I found a new wound on my body.
I’ll draw 

a crooked little crown on each photo I find in any of these boxes. From 
the seven

-teenth floor, 
I see a man asleep in the bed of a pickup truck in a lot. The rain-dark 

surfaces in 
all visible directions, horses tether to carriages & line up. Another man is nearly

struck by a car. Your voice hits me instantly & then lingers for a long
while, a cat bite

on a knuckle. What do we do with the biographies of our heroes—
the cheap madness

& best-of
compilations? I can’t feel myself where your voice hit me; I think

it’s infected.
It’s ok. Dying young is a rite of passage. Stranded families & sad phone

messages. Searching your eyes for the trademarks of various
pharmaceutical

companies. Small print. Even here. Right now, tonight is darker than it’s been
yet tonight.

We take turns,
you first, squatting in the tub, we wash each other

off of ourselves, 
though I don’t wipe my mouth.

[crowd cheering]

Yesterday, we had $9. In the world. My card got declined 
for a 10 under $10

bottle of wine. I thanked the insufferable, sympathetic cashier & left. Tonight
we sweat it out.

The visual
queering. It all opens up. Darkness pumps up the volume. Yet tonight.

Yet the myth
of narrative, progress. Yet tonight the distant dim inhales. Mostly, 

I see patterns.  Or space. Behaviors in space. Rhythm. A parade. Mostly I see
a parade.