There is finitude in ice and icy finitude
in public realms. The of-a-pieceness of it. It
maddened me, I wanted life to shatter. Glitter

Of all the notes, scraps and scribbles
Crushed in my fist for oblivion's food
(Not to spare the name of God—

This afternoon I met my woe,
   a formless sound.
I couldn't figure out her sex.

In the vacant lot nobody else wanted to rebuild,
dirt scumbled for years with syringes and dead
weed-husks, tire-shreds and smashed beer bottles,

I knew the dick size of every boy in my grade,
my measure being how it filled my fist
when I squeezed it through their jeans. In return

My dear, your lids are weary;
Lower them, rest your eyes—
As though some languid pleasure

Sunny May morning; going through the mail.
Among solicitations, one stands out
from summer neighbors: a Conquer-a-thon—

Rumor, the homemade metamorphosis;
That with each telling modifies its key
Adjectives, its semicolons; that scales

In a blow to Marxist thought, our romance red-shifted
from farce to tragedy. I had the paper trail to prove it,
a receipt from the erotic bakery with your phone number

Those lolling china heads and rag-stuffed arms
will never love us in return, said Rilke,
whose mother dressed him like a girl, whose charms