Though the sky still was partly light
Over the campsite clearing
Where some men and boys sat eating

  I’ve been to see the friend who died.
He’s fine. Less ugly (oh, he was ugly,
our poor friend!), and that waxy pallor

     I know that I should occupy my mind
and my desires only with earthly things;
but you are mightier than all desire,

my father rung poetry up on his typewriter
typing me to what he wanted to be abstract
even fancied me as “son” when me and my girl screwed

Memory near oblivion. Far death
the voice grinds and vibrates and trembles
the wind denies

to you
the view
to me

How can there be a book that maps these continents
         of clouds that drift
apart, reshape their puzzle pieces, and coalesce into new

First we lose our shadows
walking together into the veiled fields
of shade tobacco.

These days sleep comes
to me only through
the aid of three white pills.
Every night
I repeat the magic
words aloud—melatonin,
magnesium, ashwagandha
root and leaf extract
plus magnolia bark
extract that contains
honokiol and magnolol.
Pharmaceutical lullaby.
Charm to conjure

Every year the flowers come back in the same order:
                     first the crocus
like all the teenage girls on the block deciding