woods, the one from whom you learned

your loping walk. She bounced over to me, and we

hugged—her pointed-corner eyes were goldenish,

calm—the actual person’s eyes

looking out through the bobcat’s mouth.

I told the story of my small son

at the fair, calling out, “A Figure! A Figure!”

I did not tell of our young colleague,

the poet who, last week, took flight

from the bridge, down to the hard river,

lost to our sight, back into the woods of

the elements he had come from. Dear Stanley—dear

Figure!— I want to say, If you see him,

take Wiley

up in your arms,

and carry him, the rest of the way

over millions of years, to the undesired end of the earth.

Ballad Torn Apart

Now that I understand

that the world

as we know it

is going to end

I think of when I left my difficult lover

and went to see my friend alive

for the last time

and was driving home

and a few cars a-

head of me a

car leaped straight up like a cat

and turned in the air

and rushed past me

and slammed into a solid

oak behind me

as if against

the rush of time

back to when love

was being invented

before we spoiled the conditions for its

existence—land, fire, air, and water.

Geraldine Dodge Ballad

And when - on the Lists - of Festival -

Like Journey Jousts of Old -

I am not - in the First Rank -

Nor Second - but Third -

I think of all the writs I’ve wrote

Since Room - of Emily - was In -

And all my Privilege and Boast -

And Decades - of Entitlement -

Then count my blessings - Dodge, this year!

Which Feeds my Vanity enough -

That I am slightly less of what

I might be - such a hole - of Ass.

My Mother Margaret Annis -

Me a Whole Narcissus -

So long not grateful enough - for the Luck -

Which has preserved my Kids, my Life - good Fuck! -

Though not our Country, not our earth.

We are sore Pissed.

At the Festival - we will work -

To Resist.

Ms. Turbation

After the last orgasm, I

end up with the crown of my head in

the tricorn hat

of the floor and two walls.

Supine on the parquet I gaze

at the ceiling far away—

the angles of apartment geometry

gray and ivory.

My lower body hums, numb as if

a series of bombs has gone off,

each one having blasted a deeper

excavation than the last—stun

explosions of almost impersonal extreme

pleasure so intense the spirit heartache

of solitude seems for some time

not much to matter.

A couple of dozen corners above me—

doors, frames, ceilings, dropped

ceilings, shelves, closets,

like the reaches of an underground heaven,

and the angles are equilateral

but none looks it—

my vantage shows me isosceles,

and 45 degrees, as if,