Before I bathed him, the dirt was so dense
that for all it was a second, firmer skin.
Boys as we know them do not have second skins.

When I was one and twenty
and full of beauty, hate
and arrogance, we tripped

She grabs my necked with ringed fingers and bites
my cheek. A seaman hands her a bottle,

In the sea he’s drinking bourbon,
hoping to give himself up to the birds

Orpheus knew at first to dream her,
sing her, pray her, while walking,

“It’s when he began wearing saffron robes
that I started crossing the street to avoid him,”

how to cut out and burn the heart, gall and liver
   of a great fish, which was probably a crocodile,

He omm’ed a curtsy right at the spiritual!
   —but the Man Upstairs wasn’t listening.

the organ teacher says, “If you don’t mind,
I’ll lock you in,” and goes. That rinse of light,
clear and Protestant, stirs an opposite,

We’d sentenced everything that had become our lives
to a year’s confinement in a small dark cell,