First, they get up, and they take these ups and downs in stride. 

He said: “Straight from the horse’s mouth.”
He said that was straight from the horse’s mouth.

he saw my mother in the scar-city—
brown hair and yellow dusted-down dress
with lips too cracked to hold down a language

a ghost is hanging
from the doorpost
of our past—

My love, who yawns above cities feathered with soot,
      and over jungles deadly as an arsenal.

I am so cold tonight. Lend me your fever
to mull my long pastures of crumbling ice.

The bullet has almost entered the brain:
I can feel it sprint down the gunbarrel
rolling each bevel around like a hoop

They called it a landslide as though 
everything shifted and the weak 
and strong alike were buried alive.

This cemetery is no haven, 
old Jews waving at you 
offering Kaddish for a few dollars, 

The Yangtze River in China lost its nerve
and wanted vengeance.