One me is still in the yard, the place skinned of feed.
Me, old and sore-boned, little milk in that me now

We ought to hang cutout hawk shapes
in our windows. Birds hard driven
by a predator, or maddened by a mirrored rival

Many resemble Henry Sutton
in sleevelinks in Ballarat
who invented television;

One sunny afternoon on Morningside Heights
From the window-seat of the Crosstown bus,
I gaze up momentarily between chuckles
Amid Jean Paul’s tendril-flower of allusions

I rented an atelier attached to the flat
of a fading French film star, Marie-Claire—
who sighed, shaking out her trademark titian hair,

The sky is desert blue,
Like the pool. Secluded.
No swimmers here. No smog—

He rode “no hands,” speeding
headlong down the hill near
our house, his arms extended,

My mother was born in a country
whose name I can’t pronounce.

The people with minds
        will speak their minds,

flying into the air
exhilarated and
scared shitless