Ah well, I walk out into the road all fancied up.
I must admit I feel fine. But, you see,
A statement of this sort is misleading.

I am William, who by nature needs to chant     triste now, I’ll make
this song from it

When my girl and her friend walk away from me
at the swimming pool, I see her friend’s
sweet stick legs, thin as

After Marcus Licinius Crassus
defeated the army of Spartacus,
he crucified 6,000 men.

More and more, along the shore
of the Northeast Corridor, 
birds are standing in alcoves like telephone booths

They seem to be gliding toward me, in dresses,
they float and turn, in summer floral, the
ladies of the fruit trees, in ruffles, in dishevel,

They put a roof over our heads.
Each tile was a slab of clay laid over a
thigh and bent until it dried bent,

Backwards and upside down in the twilight, that
woman on all fours, her head
dangling and suffused, her lean

Standing in the ladies’ room line,
in the temple basement, the woman in front of me
said, “I’ve been sitting behind you, admiring

Finally someone just drops it and breaks it
like a mercy killing, the cow butter dish,
it cracks easily into five pieces,