“A Man of Thirty-Five, Smooth and White, Slight, Well-Bred, and Masterful”

what use gold tokens pulled from the earlobe of my mother left me         like divorce, like a treatise on divorce

this has to be couched in the language of dream we’ve been enjoined from the discourse of marriage forever coupling in corners       hypogeal fungi         only, rotten

each grandiose bully taken in hand, forgiven, wheedled artfully toward respect;

no diadem, no veil, no tiny be-ribboned dog mhm, indicating assent

let me tell it, no you tell it

this has to be couched in the language of dream—crude, to say “I love” excepting the person of the President of the United States a lingering terror brought on by devotional music

        another bedraggled text from my brother

or, I’ve no one to talk to about my life

if my father had lived a lot longer we would have ventured       an explanation of my method not a form of bragging

since he knew me as a person attached to the frank limitations of freshness in a body too much alive

there was water coming off the house and slate shingles that was the year he was thirty-seven—he noticed the orbit was failing he recognized inattention whipping up his wife and daughters

weekly the high school was overtaken by neologism throwed-off and I was living in an attic room

fanning myself         shingle casuistry said he ought to get in his Mercedes

and get the fuck out of there