In the old days, before beginning and in order to continue, they always asked for celestial aid: bless these boats and make them safe; guide my faltering steps; strengthen my arm and sharpen my sword; preserve my penis from the pox, O Lord. Like pants from a weakened waistband, there has been a certain sliding down of expectation. Homer wanted the whole of Ulysses’ wanderings whistled through his lips——vain, greedy man—the way, according to his friends, the soul of, perhaps it was Pythagoras, might be heard lamenting in the howls of a hound. ¶Well, the [I|my|me], the total absorption of the blind, is well known. They expect the world to move aside and not bump. ¶Did he sing without pencils—this jongleur, Homer? And where was the cup? ¶They’ve had a hard knock, so now they want a soft touch. All that pity in place of milk has switched their skin and bones. What do you deserve, though, but darkness, if you’ve failed to pay the electric? ¶He had the stare of a statue without the excuse of stone—this raconteur, this Homer. ¶Oedipus didn’t keen, who put his own out the way some gouge holes to plant bulbs. What light do they shine, down there in the dirt? down there in the dirt? downstairs? ¶My stars, these poets are so petty despite the high opinion they have of themselves. Virgil—a yokel, tubercular it’s said, dark, tall, raw, didn’t he moisten his quill with lung-pink spit? yeah, well, he merely wanted help with fakes and fibs . . . excuses for his hero’s dismal dillydally, the unremitting malice of the gods. Hatred is a habit of the heavens, hadn’t he heard? whirlwind and hail and parching drought, drenching rain and the blinding white pelt of the blizzard, the shout that scars trees, fog like the film from my own feelings settling slowly over everything, chilling, dampening, obscuring the world with silence, releasing it from every relation, setting it adrift . . . He should have come to me. I know all about regretfullys. I hold the High Chair of Disclaimers. I receive excuses the way silos are funneled grain.

dear Prof

My grandmomma died so I’ll be unable, Friday, 3 I think we had arranged (1 cough 2 knocks), to squeeze your penis in my lotioned palm. Tough tibby, o my weakly weenied chéri.

Dear Dad,

I didn’t get in on time last night because Anna K & Sister C & me & Madame B ran out of road rounding a curve and had to walk home through five miles of concatenating cloud, frequent patches of millinery damp and Disney trees.

Hi there, husz –

I regret very much any inconvenience or dismay my oral reluctance may have caused you, but I was poisoned once by a spew of sperm from a sick imagination and had to spend a fortnight with some local dentifrice. It gags me to think about, though it was winters ago when I was only the spring of a summer girl.