What are you going to eat?

I’ll go out.

Where? There’s nothing there, I looked.

Looked where?

Google maps.

You’re crazy.

Me?

Well I just can’t make it, I’m sorry.

(quiet) Are you drawing?

Yes.

That’s something, at least.

At least.

I don’t mean it that way.

It’s good for me.

(pause) Is there—

I’ve got to go. This thing cuts out all the time.
And I’m running out—

—a man?

—of minutes. No.

What are the people like?

Like people.

Do you need money?

Yes but don’t send it.

What do you mean don’t send it?

I don’t want anything.

You sound strange.

It’s the phone.

The phone?

Because I hate talking on it and then I say things.

Are you sure—

It’s work. I’m working.

You can tell me—

Mom.

You’ll starve.

(silence)

Are there bears?

(sigh)

Because honey I know you

you’d let one eat you right up—

NIGHT SONG

NIGHT SONG

You brought batteries for the radio.

We danced close, the way we couldn’t at the dance hall,

your cock against my thigh.

We danced those batteries out.

I took them, spent, when I left,

Bobby Hatfield’s sad falsetto

ringing through the copper caps.

Candles quivering against the glass, our shadows

hovering above our heads I will never forget

the spider’s egg opening in the corner, her babies

spilling across the wall as you dug your chin into my neck.

Walking through song after song.

The thing is, you were soft.

The white of a barely cooked egg, the glistening

edge of it, how it trembles on metal.

You kept falling in love.

The spiders

found the cracks, made new nests. They ate

the ants. And the radio sat on the shelf

above the little blackened pan with its scrawny omelets

and said nothing.

DAPHNE

DAPHNE

Her back against       me       catching her

deep breaths.       Naked she was    smooth    as pith

hair    caught       in a branch I pulled       it free.

The women       kneel       at the root       I watch.

How determined they are       to bleed.       Apollo’s gold eyes

didn’t dazzle me I

prefer    the stream       she opens her book and      learns her trees

the flies          are heavy this time       of year she

combs them from her

bangs       at night       she’s thinking   more and more

how to

escape it       should she          escape

where’s your daddy I asked

isn’t he             a god

CELL

CELL

It worked

sometimes. Blue light in the dark

and your name in black

on the screen hardly ever

showing up. You didn’t need

to call: when you came

I was here.

Every time. Unerring this sense

of pussy and where

to find it.

Strung up in the smokehouse or waiting their turn beneath

the ice—

you know where the bodies are.

You put them there.

SHOPPING LIST

SHOPPING LIST