That rusting water tower collapsing
on its ruin was the movie theater
where you sat in smoky consternation

The empty mills brood on the river, grim 
with boarded doors and blackened eyes as bleak 
as those of men who might have tales to spin 

The money, he asks, haven’t you
thought about the money?
We’re feeding her

Best of all things are the lights in the sky
but what I am seeking is sleep.
Or not sleep exactly,

You think of moving the captured submarine 
to a permanent berth alongside the museum
in your city. A retired engineer who spent

I can answer only to Adonis—
call me that, and you'll find I'm easily
managed. Some time ago, I was promised

I have not forgotten, neighbor,
our red brick rowhouse, tiny and quiet
with the window always cracked open
even in winter

The moment's denting inward like a can,
The poet wrote in a fever of expectancy
But the line went nowhere, it had nowhere to go.

Dying of thirst,
I long to share the fate of the wild irises
Each raindrop must seem to whom the size of a boulder

Through the toxic atmosphere,
   beneath the neon light of a pistachio moon,
         I see my lover's perfect, unkempt
hair, which ends in shapely scalpels