They made money—
                                maybe not the way
you think it should be done

My gift to you will be an abyss, she said, 
but it will be so subtle you’ll perceive it
only after many years have passed

Two poets 20 and 23 years old, 
Naked in bed with the shades drawn
Intertwine themselves, suck nipples and

At three A.M. we passed
through the Great Pit
and our boat, which had always been creaky
withdrew instantly

The memory of Lisa descends again
through night’s hole. 
A rope, a beam of light

When Lisa told me she’d made love
to someone else, in that old Tepeyac warehouse
phone booth, I thought my world

Auto in sunlight: every trace of gloss
Is dulled a rusting green.
Even the fenders are a dirty chrome

After a dingy rain I walked out
Through a world stripped bare of narrative,

A truce while the wet surfaces

How faceless their pathos, the ovals
of these heads, huge, smooth, hermetic
as eggs, and solemn, especially the man’s

You could be turning it in your fingers like a planet.
A knife would do, if you're good with knives,
bracing the hard fruit in your slender hand;