After a long night swimming
In the dry dark of a book
I heard outside my window 

Today when I was walking 
I had a man tell me as he passed 
That I was a white bitch (he was white) 

Oh the baby cries. He howls and claws 
like a wrongly minor red wolf 
who doesn’t know his mother.    

Feelings seem like made-up things, 
though I know they’re not.   

I wake up mornings snug in my bed-puppet.
Not the liveliest in my repertoire,
but wait, it gets better: next is my pants-puppet,

Catch! It’s a quarter, right? You got it? Good.

In the shadow
of the mountain
quarters click 

Our ménage à trois by candlelight—;
the various absurdities: black lace,
pink mules, a little-bo-peep teddy. 

Then he deflowers her, pulling away the greenery.
Then a blue vein thinning into a hollow.
Then it is the hollow between her neck and lower jaw.

Then we could ride all day and yet 
not reach the farthest edge of our demesne,
its slow hand clap of grouse