knowledge of strangling,

how pressure around a person’s neck

will cause a contact lens to dislodge from the iris,

making it hard to see, but that’s not funny,

not funny to anyone

except the company that slices

and sells the lenses—they never turn down

a chance to sell replacements,

so at least somebody’s

smiling, cozying up with a cup of cream

of potato, flipping on the money

channel, watching that arrow soar—

The Beach

The Beach

In theory I don’t

like it but then when I’m there

I remember how in so many

other locations

it is not considered permissible

behavior to splay facedown

and speak to no one

the beach

is one of the few spots left

where you get spared

where you may excuse yourself

from the performance of

these clabbered conversations

one person explaining the fortune

teller on Highland Avenue

couldn’t make rent and hammered

the storefront shut

the other spouting back SHOULDN’T

SHE HAVE PREDICTED, BEING

A FORTUNE TELLER AND ALL, THAT WAS

GOING TO HAPPEN

sour pattern

anyway that’s not what they do

it’s not like she’s in there informing

people which semiconductor

stock is fixing to split or in what

year they’ll get divorced

it’s more silhouetted

it’s not like she’s in there

cautioning walk

with another person that night

keys will be hardly, the fortune

reader isn’t in there screaming,

weapon enough

the beach

the terns and the metal detectors

the sensation of combing

through sediment witlessly

another person

would not have been knocked

into the air and propelled

toward the copious bramble

would not have stayed there all night

would not have required returning

the next day

in hopes of retrieval

kneeling

scrutinizing the thistle

Don’t Spend It All in One Place

Don’t Spend It All in One Place

The whole thing about museums is they don’t

let you have a pen; it is formally prohibited to write

with a pen while proximate to the collection.

The only appropriate response is scorn—just what

do they think is going to happen? Do they envision me

slipping, flailing with pen-hand extended,

and somehow streaking ink all over their corrugated

sculpture of a big tin knot? Mocking the prospect

of a museumgoer scarring the art helps me forget

about all the times it has of course happened:

acid splatter across the Dutch nude, hammer to the arm

of the PIETÀ. Or the pipe bomb placed beside

the high relief. Or the man who drew his gun

and shot up a wall of old masters and then himself.

Attacks on artwork are common enough, but it’s not

as though every odd watercolor gets its own

day to be maimed. It’s more that specific paintings

enter into cycles of finding themselves slashed

and restored, punched through and restored, effaced

by aerosol and then restored. Once a painting

gets famous for having absorbed some disturbance,