You call out to the one who walks on castle walls,
wakening the storm lashing trees
to spell the stone steps of a night's curse,

The chopping of the chocolate, the zesting of the orange,
the scalding of the milk,
the pouring of the cream, the folding-in,

Freud liked to collapse distinctions:
masochism is the continuation
of sadism (“nothing but”), in which

Vienna revolts outside; in,
an addict is bent
over everything ever written on dreams

Slapped by saplings, hampered by roots,
our shovels went like spoons into
mouths that opened wider as we worked.

Close up, much too, ivory’s surface like most
surfaces is nothing smooth. To the touch
in all particulars it’s what the fresh

an excert from The Ferguson Report: An Erasure

Not too old, not young anymore, 
almost three dozen years gone by. 
Not a failure, not a success— 

Joseph Moxon, Mechanick Exercises. Vol. 2 (1683–84), the first known manual of printing

i.
J. M. begins his book,
Every thought taken up from the block with a roll
Of the ball and inked on the form,
A Craft of the Hand which cannot be taught by Words:
“I thought to have given these Exercises
The title of Doctrine of Handy-Crafts but when I considered
The true meaning of the word I found the Doctrine
Would not bear it, therefore I shall not undertake

If the man who called you nigger in Dominick’s parking lot
had only dialed 1-800-882-Mary earlier today,
he may have been a better boyscout. I bet