I’ve inherited famine.
Taste, a gluttony: my mirrored crawl.
The women of my line dwell in fractions,

The movie starts with a man taking pictures of himself, like all movies do,
like a woman peeling onions, one layer, one translucent film at a time,
blurring her eyes with teats, Sorrow does this. So does mace. So do peppers—

Learning to say “So what?”
in every other language,
I rolled between cities 

moments like this one, the green carpet
looking for once just the right green,
is it the lighting, or your shadow thrown

I wanted sky. That was my ambition. And now I’m being tugged 
Up a small steel mountain,

A burly chain beneath the car hauling my weight 

And so,        my father rode the devil
out of the Kawasaki        1300-cc six-cylinder
I’d wash Sundays.        We, the Kingdom Riders.

I sit on a bench eating cherries,
Amazed that I wasn’t cheated,
For the whole bag is ripe and deep red.

Sweet element, disguise,
like a partial illustration—
it is our own inviolable corruption.

There are no cattle in Abilene.
I expected cattle.
I thought they trafficked in cattle in Abilene.

I’ve chosen to take the stairs.
It’s harder, but quicker
than waiting for the elevator
which seems eternally stuck on R—Roof.