Out of the darkness, men come 
     with knives. They work quickly, 
muttering back and forth. 

One last stop, he says. And they drive to Westside Lanes. 
I grew up bowling. I don’t want to bowl. It was raining. 
We’re not going to bowl, the circus carpet dark with gum 

Not too old, not young anymore, 
almost three dozen years gone by. 
Not a failure, not a success— 

That man over there 
looking sidelong 
as you sidelong 

I made this up from nothing. 
It’s not myself I sing, 
or love, or anything 

It’s said they started in beach sand,
but now it’s Gobi, Sahara, Mojave grit
the fish sift through their gills, absorbing 

September, with a paintbrush, on Monadnock.
October, in the backyard, with a silencer.
November, on a windowpane, with a skate blade.

It’s a lonely world
Hi everybody
It’s Dorothea, Dorothea Lasky

In the good old days mutations appeared everywhere, 
and every second baby was a monster.  
I wish I could have lived then, neighbor 

When as a child
I came to be schooled by the Muses,
one of them took me by the hand,