As one who thinks of poetry
As a way of talking to yourself,
I probably do too much explaining,
For that’s what talking to yourself is like:
The things you can’t explain to anyone
Are suddenly made clear to no one, as though
Nobody mattered but yourself. And it’s the same

We have them, and live and think about them,
But then, what are they? Some seem like
Bigger deals than the rest, like those of big enchiladas
Or the CEOs of banks too big to fail, but why? Some seem
Meaningful for their commitments and accomplishments,
As no doubt they are, though most are unexceptional
And ordinary, and just fine for that. They’re all equal

Weary am I now love
now that I’m weary of love

      On a park bench after dark,
      practically begging
      to be assaulted, I—Wolf,
      you bit my hand off.

I see now I was 50 percent to blame.
That’s right. And, because I value fairness,
I’ll apologize for leaving you
alone with my dad that time we sprang him from Bellevue

I’m a sad case, really: little things please me.
                                                                                     —Len Goodman

I drove 50 miles to buy a birthday present.
Why: not so much bigheartedness
as pleasure in the process—

The apples are early this year, & the grass is late. The taxi is
Early & the past is late. The fist is late. The tooth—like the news

Of the tooth—broke both early & late. I’m telling you: this all
Really happened. I had a love I ripped through like it was bread.

I had bread & cheese, apples & sugar on my every plate.
A sugar rose on my every cake. A love like a water

All night the slur of cars. Now
one closer, now up-
        voluming, & I lean

against the doorframe, listening.
        I’ve nothing to wake you for.
The earth’s hot core whorls

Like an alarm I can’t shut off, the summer.
Like air raid sirens stuck on
the world is burning, the world is burning
& I can’t stop it. Can’t stop ash from the reddening

sky falling dry onto grass, onto clover
lit purple at their tips. Mouth level.
My cheek muscles the ground. I can’t hear

anything here. I can’t hear
them but I know, around me,
forests are not quiet as they burn.

So much depends
upon
forgetting much

How they tumbled down the snow-filled streets,

how they slept in battered vending boxes
and hung from dowels in the public library.

How my father kept the memorable ones in his closet,
among the dying shoes.

Then the power went out. The TV closed its eye

and the house felt strange in the new silence:
a hush of snowstorm.