I live a life of appetite and, yes, that’s right,
I live a life of privilege in New York,
Eating buttered toast in bed with cunty fingers on Sunday morning.

At seventy-seven I reached my prime.
But seventy-eight was also absolutely great.
And then came fab seventy-nine and continuing to climb.

The hundred shadows of the evergreens.
The refracted
strands of the ripples:

Ultimate, white-haired
bandaged at the eyes like judgement
you lie at the hospital stainless faucets and the pipes

Uptown for freelance techwriting,
then home. The mouse hole at
the stove needs plugging. But first,

The blind boy taped you and we clapped
starving beak after crumbs
hoarse with cancer and one breast

Sheen on your hair on the back of your book
jacket. Intellect’s steel, perhaps I said.
My friend and teacher until we did not talk,

I want to wake her, run to greet her,
even if she were dead a hundred years
and showed herself as no more than a shadow

The river icy in the wind.
Jersey glinting from night’s amalgam. Neon shines
from the luminous, frosted window.

Suburbs shrill with Nintendo warriors.
Ten o clock: a queasy Pax Romana.
The ears of our mother's cancer over.