I haven’t met you yet. I’m out the door,
late for a bus, suitcase spilling open,
disgorging my life so far.

When I came out of my study, Ginny was standing there with
wet hair. “Are you going to town today?” she asked me. “I wasn’t

I came from a place with a hole in it,
my body once its body, behind a beard of hair.   
And after I emerged, all dripping wet,

Not that it was needed that much, this much
was clear. A little cleverness would do
as well, a lei woven of servility

When they passed through a city, it was others knew it first.
The man claimed no lift in his shoe but an advertisement for the dance
left over from the last street but one.

If it’s loveliness you want, here, take some,
hissed the black fairy. Waiting for the string quartet,
on the corner, denatured I wondered what the heck.

I sit on the dock for a haircut and watch
as summer spreads out, relieving the general,
indiscriminate gray, like a mouthful of gin

How lucky I am tonight to be holding a lantern 
at this railroad crossing in the middle of America 
and not clinging to a leaky raft on the north Atlantic,

Ava taught me how to smoke
in the woods behind our high-school dorm. 
We lay back laughing in the dirt.

To get to this place, 
you must go through the village which is above.
If you find yourself before the mountain