With us, it’s about
choices.
How many kinds

Because of your own natural sense of death,
death's stench in the fur, in the follicles, sweat glands,
death in the roots of the teeth, it's right

The radiation machine
didn’t hum. The lights in the room dimmed.

Rads went through my chest
without a word.

THESE ARE THE THINGS WE THINK ARE BEAUTIFUL:
Flames and money with colors. Good thick paper
rubbing between the fingertips like oil.

Sparrow who drags a footlong crust of bread behind him
Sparrow whose head is pecked bald from so many quarrels

woe our good kaspar is dead
who will wear now the burning flag in a braid who will crank the coffee grinder
who will lure the idyllic deer

A sub- or super-sensibility,
exquisitely fine-tuned, can summon up
special information, specially told:

"Oh, murder!" she was heard to mutter, or
"Mary mother of god!" You see how close
these utterances come? Please kiss me, Mom.

"Oh, how we love the glow of holy gold!"
They curled, cavorting in the evening sun .
"Oh, but centuries have passed since the rage

I said something nonsensical to them
and they mocked back, "but we're your one design,"
or "you're our one design"—which was it?