Wrong shirt at Ocean Park—
what you want preps an elementary doxy
for dogmatic chasing.
I’ve sold my hair, bowed to the brogue
of dreams and agreed as a mermaid
would to walk on knives.
Good dagger be good to me.

I get into the elevator at your feet.
I and the thousand souls of I.
My imagined heart is a china aster,
a dime on the staircase of the Metropolitan.
A woman’s fragrance revolves in the lift