They're lying on a Mexican blanket,
she's on her back with her knees up
and he leans on one elbow,

I'll never be as handsome as my father,
singing Vivaldi, when he's seventy-five,
beneath gold domes or strolling by the water.

The one resting now on a plant stem
somewhere deep in the vine-hung
interior of South America

At the bus stop a blind man sells colored pencils.
Ballpoint pens, too, at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Ten cents for a pencil, two bits for a pen.

Some men say I've forgotten why I sing,
as if I were a happy, careless thing.

But just my speechless body stayed behind—

Eventually she stayed
with the overflown artery of Ouse
fingering pebbles one at a time two

I envy the cellist with the sculpted barrel
between her knees.
I envy the violinist, the trainer of a mahogany bird

One can't work
by lime light.
A bowl full
right at
one's elbow

Slip is one
law of crash
among dozens.

Going to visit my mother is like starting in on a piece by
                                                                                Beckett.
   You know that sense of sinking through crust,