So quick were the men to agree to circumcision.
They all stumbled around the city for days.
Then my brothers killed them. Bless their rampaging 

One last stop, he says. And they drive to Westside Lanes. 
I grew up bowling. I don’t want to bowl. It was raining. 
We’re not going to bowl, the circus carpet dark with gum 

Okay         A nightingale 
does sing 
                 outside this window 

Sleeping within earshot of the Aegean
once more, I forget where I am
a second & mistake the surfs white noise
for rain, unheard-of here

A toe dances under my nose         My eye
Takes it from there, moving on up peekaboo style
Over ankles and calves past kneecaps to thighs—

To maintain these depths of misery
takes work given my buoyant disposition;
for every sill of my flesh

Over the tops of the lockers,
I hear a woman

His intentions remained secret
Among the vociferous others who posted
Imprecations in the church’s chat room, drawing

I think, sometimes, of how you blocked
The future, as if it were a scene, and wrote it
In a letter before you drove all night through snow.

It is gravitas, the gray of quarry stone, the burden
of the middle plane, the moving toward the heavy hour
the angels come, bearing grief whose name is benediction.