I’ve been to see the friend who died.
He’s fine. Less ugly (oh, he was ugly,
our poor friend!), and that waxy pallor

But there is only one of you
they say as though they knew
and it may even be true

Your staggered lenses, trained on an empty track,
recorded what straggled into view
and out again, a dust cloud and a leaning pack

As he starts with her tippet, takes off
her bonnet, moves on to fingering
stay and skin, my brain cells stray

It was not unlike a raccoon
when I found it by the highway.
Clearly it was special,

 Riding to the Great Northern Wilderness
we sang about self-correction in the club car,
dreamed up new crimes to put in our autobiographies

Their dream decelerates our spinning planet
one millimeter-per-second per century
until they have matched velocity with us

     I know that I should occupy my mind
and my desires only with earthly things;
but you are mightier than all desire,

on Spanish Rice. Like strange-eyed minks we took
the town, with bright, unearthly stares and offering
nothing. We were eager for suspicion. Ginger even

The flower pod, green-white, hand sized,
bloomed at night. As the dead increased,
the world of objects seemed more dense,