What if givenness isn’t enough—
and the wind’s slithering along my arm
is really a subtle summery alarm

I lived in a rooming house then 
and tried to be good but was a real 
disappointment. A man without cunning 

The transfer is done in a dark room
with a red light to keep them calm.  
Still, it’s stressful, hanging upside down, 

On the way to Mass, by chance,
I spotted you on the boulevard at a café
with your wife and her mother. 

Why do they lie down
when I shoot them?
Such open,

I came from a place with a hole in it,
my body once its body, behind a beard of hair.   
And after I emerged, all dripping wet,

The record skips in the parlor
when the gurney wheels past.
Mother’s on her way to maternity.

While others were discussing
the styles of metopes,
I lay down in the Temple of Zeus

I could be a statue or a pine tree.
The love-canceling hours are gone.
There is no ick factor.

The tent men arrived bearing sledgehammers
and were young enough to be my sons.  
After rolling out the canvas, they drove rods