We are all connected, one unto another.

I am riding down Fifth Avenue on a bus. A woman touches my leg and speaks of forests. My need unfolds like a newborn’s limb, stiff and uncertain. She whispers close and I tremble as we reach my stop.

1956: She is the girl with the biggest
breasts in Sloan, Iowa. She will take
a backseat to no one. He is young

I don’t want to write the great American novel
And set people walking across the pages of a book
Doing things like sweating on page 4, praying on page 45,

It isn’t easy. We work
without a goal. We have never followed
directions. Splicing together

Stepping deftly to the jetty,
members of the boating party,
women in pearls, long skirts, cloche hats,

Unable to distinguish between flying and falling
With a feeling of splendid contempt and with a strange loving longing 
In my eyes, I look up at the helicopter that was lately  my home 

Once upon a time
in the village of Stara
Zagora, Mikhail Drogzenovich,

I am about to close my refrigerator after removing a package of meat when I hear my door lock turning and a crew of men, without so much as first knocking, walk in.

Because there are things we don’t understand, we’re shaking
our heads no. But still there are acupuncture needles,
mysterious as Excalibur, in a numb chest,