I wish somebody would give me
a couple of live panda bears.
After all these years I deserve them.

The sisters are waiting
in the trophy room: Belinda
and Ducky. The morning

When the roof gave, they
raked up the mosaic
and sold it by the kilo sack.

Hung, awfully, over the valley
      on this remote escarpment,

I’m constructing my own brierpatch. True,
I’m bleeding from the long canes just dug in;

Who will meet her?
sitting ahead of me,
her face a crushed girlskin,

I’ll buy that “collage blouse”
      as advertised “prismatic with
faux coins and stones”

The illusion of total competence traps 
Drunks and other scientists trying 
Any old bottle that catches their eye. 

Henut and Judy sucking lollipops
are the room’s only furnishing.

I read about the man who stood
50 years after the battle and saw
the field of human skeletons.