You are not the first man to have the shakes, 
the wheels, the horrors, to wear the scarlet 
snowshoe, nor yet the invincible harlot 

So huge is God’s despair
In the wild cactus plain
I heard Him weeping there

But never fall from fealty to light.
You said, Melville? Now, by God, sir, why not?
The pall is comfortable enough; as soon rot

Quiet, my tiny violins, salve
the poor chests beaten bruise-grey with grief.
May you always be so happy that it stings me.

More than leaves, dust and wind
envelop the football game in the meadow.
It is an enormous, ill-defined ball of Artie tumbleweed

It is like drowning,
The water of the eyes spills back into the head
It coats the skull like honey

I am never getting married or having babies
after I saw what happened to these dogs we had
named Max and Phoebe. 

the summer she wore a bathing suit
she stood me in front of her
and was photographed.

We begin every night ignorant,
two xenophobes called in from exile,
pleased to the point of buoyant.

You must remove your sleepmask, haul it
from your eyes, sleep a white sleep without
slapping floodwaters—let it go,