The swirling, soapy lather
burns in the mortal drain

Thank goodness for the money and machines.
Without them we are different, withal weird.

High as hell, commingling with the devil’s
Curlicues, sopping skin, genuflecting bones.

What moves toward you, uneven, menacing?
All that you have lost—

beyond the barricades, some invisible gesture
has frozen everyone in place—

In my room, the Russian nesting doll reddens;
her wooden smile conceals
the crisis of her many same-shaped selves:

Eyes, though seen, are hollow, impossible

I imagine: pyramids, obelisks,
the Valley of Kings, and one torn bra.

Thus freed from the mighty pencil, figures
flew over the walls of museums

A fallow field in January, crisping
under our boots; the red barn, slanting roof

that slumps and decays; the seed-stitching