Had the king of Uruk never wrestled Enkidu,
the wild man of the steppe, and just barely defeated him
on points, he never would have fallen in love with him

How free I’ll be, once I abandon the notion that my deeds
Should make me larger, that I’m kin to a tree

There on the street, an angel policeman
Is directing the flashing mosaic of traffic.

And where begins our not-quite-romance? An ill summer
passed without the hummed comfort of air-conditioning.
Heat scumbled into the corners of Cambridge: ivory our suburb

Even the few here who regard themselves as aliens
Declare with their window boxes that they' re not ungrateful
For the happenstance of being alive,

The moon as brittle as a tooth

The moon mistaken 
For a fortune coming true

Wrong shirt at Ocean Park—
what you want preps an elementary doxy
for dogmatic chasing.

I asked you to have faith in me!
But the four comers of the world smile dumbly.
Envious as the mountain

never too much; it sits on top of the skin like a
little crystal casket.

at the corner of your eye, right
where the eyeball swivels