Your Majesty, Your Majesty, why have you such big eyes?

All the better to see you with—replies the King
and his eyes inspect Little Red Riding Hood from each wall of the room

on a certain December day in 1981
the front page of The Sydney Tribune said that
Mrs. Smith had found a snake in her garden

The tail, held back along the spine, keeps them
—most times—from kicking you. I don’t know why.

“I’m looking forward to my death,” she said.
I sat upright. I watched her blond hair sway,
this college girl who taught our Sunday School.

When winter is here, no one cares
how fate is exposed by your absence,
or how the place lacks for the missing color—

Hi Roy. Hope all is well;
just wanted to drop a line
to let you know we miss you.

The blonde unlocks
her daddy’s Firebird,
blood-red as a tropical fish.

The sun drills a hole between my shoulder blades
I am ashamed that I want self-degrading things
I burn for no reason like a lantern in daylight

The way I had it figured as a kid,
This Mercury would be a relic now
Mounted in some museum, on display

When, in the evening, I explore the succulent shadows
with their blue veins and black chrysanthemums,
their thorny places,