having come apart, I see

the fractures in the crystal structure

of the hall where I hide to drive myself into this

vision inside the particle

where the pillars of matter crump and anyone’s

triangular tusk ruler would shimmy

and waver in oasis shimmers

down to the horizontal. I always

thought it was love which made sex

so violent sweet,

I thought that sex hooked its wagon

to love’s star.

Not Extinct Yet

First was the narrow harlequin fellow

at the pane. Second the glass and cardboard

to try to free it. Third was the fury

of gold legs and fan-blade wings

caught in a web, between chair rungs.

Fourth the wasp flinging itself

inches out into the air, then snapped

back by the gummed leash. Fifth

the eighth-inch, dust-colored spider darting to the

jester and back. Six the gold

stripes of the insect, six its black.

Seven the silk of enjambements cast

around it. Eight her legs walking

on it. Nine the hours of the paper-sculptor’s

agony. And at the tenth hour

of my curious witness, my torment-farming—either

crush it or don’t, Sharon, here at the

eleventh hour of the end of the world.

Hair Ballad

Kneeling - to the Faucet - Nape

Up - Rinsing a Foot or More

Of Hair - at the scalp, Millions -

At the tip - One Hair.

Each Eye Socket Intricate

As a Peregrine’s Profile -

Unscroll the Soak Dollop Up -

And Flip - in Duplicate - one Hank

Left - a Drool Climbs the Tile -

One Right - and at a Distance, Chime

And click of Shatter. After -

Gray Bowl of Half Dome

Like a Bubble on the Floor. Touched, it’s solid -

Brittle - Dust-Shod Tear -

And at a touch - Isosceles

Glass Pierce.

’Twas a Bulb - above the Sink -

Not Smithereened -

But Cut with Butcher’s Grace - Crown -

For the Haggard - Checkered - Kinged -

Chased - Dressed - Check-mated - Matron

Fresh Old Maid -

Smiles into her Eyes, between

The Birth Braid - Left - and the Death Braid.

Rubber Shower Mat Ballad

When the shower mat is coming apart,

the curled flay looks like a rind

of sow, pork-belly—hundred and twenty

nipples, a pig in shit—but pigs

“are actually very clean creatures,

said the young matron,” and porkers wallow

in mud for relief from biting flies.

The rubber mat, teats up,

looks like the raw, titted bacon

of a rubber industrial porcine, the rich

taps of milk remind one

of the women the dictators mutilate,

to milk a husband of information,

to husband what he knows. The Colonels—

the angels hate them. I take up the heavy

lollop, the collop of epidermis—

the fraying is on the long sides.

With kitchen shears, I cut the edges

away, making an hourglass, gray and

malleable with use, another dead goddess of the earth.

Handkerchief Ballad

I have a Vice—Accumulative—

With Cruelty connected to it.

One shape it takes—a Crewelwork Orange