In the trees from Faulkner, Calvino,
and probably as many writers
         as I was starting to know.

Plain and simple: he failed.
Lost a battle. And the angry
Athenians wanted him dead.

Windows un-Windexed
Sheets not laundered, itchy crotch
I’ve myself to blame

One definition of love
is the grocery list, its
shorthand reckoning

His manner went to Queen Elizabeth
decapitating Mary—Queen of Gaul.
Throckmorton had become a shibboleth.

I fix every kind of stab wound, fractured clavicle,
gold teeth sliced out of sleeping mouths for trophy
earrings, all paranoia's graffiti pleading. Doc please

Some learned the palette is the devil’s platter,
the brush a crucifix: by law, no icons
no graven images “made unto thee.”

A little hotel on the rue de Fleurus
Was bursting with you.

The vagaries of taste might swerve.
Suddenly, leaving you disaudienced.

They made money—
                                maybe not the way
you think it should be done