Once in the middle of a boy’s walk
Where I came seeking facts to wonder at,
I found a relic left from a small life,

Mother of fictions
and of irony,
help us to laugh.

I, Gelimer, on a hill in Africa, 
Recently come to my senses, although it is late. 
At the end of my kingdom and my years,  

Not that his writing isn’t moving when
it doesn’t seem it should be,
owing in part, at least, to the cloud of difficulty

He begins to notice how all his single friends have dogs
And wear expensive running shoes, how their conversations run
To deep metaphysical questions that didn’t exist before 1983.

Just after Ludwig II's death the surgeons opened
   below his ribs and removed his heart:
it's now preserved, indeed enshrined, in a silver vase

One day he steps out for a pack of smokes
And comes back to find his family has deserted him.
The wife with the end curled hair, the boy and the girl

We could have finished had he kept his mind
to this, a solitary gem, its mount 
near Oberammergau, the home of wood-

They took the host into their mouths,
Held it on their tongues, and washed it

Their flesh drifting off like ... like loose hay in strong wind.