“Nebraska and Oklahoma have the longest contiguous border
Of any two states,” you announce.
Your hair stands up in corkscrews

Cunning, I discovered
Loss of legs an asset
To intricate motility.
I have little use

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 know Grace
who speaks to fire.
She tells this on herself

Why don’t you go downtown—
in one manhole
and out the other—
past thirty-two

Knock on any door
For any real reason,

Asking for money, say,

They had their own churches in their own
parts of town, some with domes like onions.
My uncle who got around told me they plastered

The blue in beets
comes and goes
sometimes a shadow

You are seventeen, your name
is Sally & you
get wet

It’s not enough to talk to plants
you also have to listen. And day after day
it’s the same petty complaints and trivial gossip: