If you can't fuck me while I read, fuck off.
You're not the best of what's been thought or said,
Not yet. But youth, with genius, is enough.

In all honesty, saying this
As if reaching out to hold your hand
And attest to a truth, my tongue

Nothing happened here—nothing ever
happened in our city, and yet it was destroyed.
What could the innocent citizens have done?

My mother wanted to believe she would never lose me,

the way she wanted to believe in Christ
but now maybe all she believes is Thomas,

                 Is it cardinals

that separate seed from the yellow blades of rye
the way braille comes up with the fingertips,

I’ve followed the crumbs to your feast,
share the table with Father again,
his anger smoldering belly-deep

I was so young that I invented loss,
The image of the mother's face receding
On the far edge of the broken bed,

No charts nor maps were accorded
him, so he fabricated a route,
a Maginot Line around the earth.

Like monks tunneling into desert
mesas, a vibrant hermitage surrounded
by a moat of sand, rats have tunneled

Poor Collins sung the gradual, waiting,
Praying for Eve to arrive. And, while bidding
         For her, sure of failure,