are about connection: his daughter’s name
woven into a plume of smoke.
While my father drank coffee, and smoked,

The Japanese say the size of a man’s ear
will determine his wealth:
a large ear like the Buddha’s

Inside the shelter of another morning.
The escaping minutes that bottle bees ride,
phone numbers carved into the walls.

And on the receiver’s live air, the insistent hello
from someone who has refused to hang up, the plea
divorced from all name and form,

He offers his adulteries the way
our cat presents yard kill. And I sweep
the corpses away, complicit keeper

Four businesswomen of a certain age
in serious suits, networking. A taut,
tanned, author, speaker, corporate advisor

The violet slave ripped away,
dull muscle that had grown here,
vulgar pillow of the pearl.

The wind is heard hollering
through open spaces
between the dirty sheets.

We wondered, Have we already been punched
into this world’s time clock often enough
to earn the preservation of a family tree

Some men, who collaborated self-consciously
with killers behind a one-way mirror darkly,
catching their breaths on every errant wind,