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,

naked and noiseless, and when I looked at her
she looked at me so directly,

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,

Climbing the stairs, slowly, on my palms
and soles, bent far forward, I see
my shins closer than usual—

The hospital lobby was lined with short 
and long views of Audubon’s birds,
the tallest ones’ necks curved, all the way

When I go to the bathroom I see a beetle in the tub,
black, with a band of stone color
around the center, granite with a trace of