Bark of the birch, aria of the oriole, grit of the sand grain,
In the first stanza I shall attempt to confiscate your essence
And each time, you will slip through the noose of language,

I lie on my back in the damp grass,
Staring at the stars’ mineral precision,
Masses of gas, bearers of dead light,

Ruffle and tuck, river fabric wags doggedly towards ocean,
Heaping surface on surface, its cadence a gown.

For how many years have I kept up the lie, the story
of the middle-aged man in the cap and the gray
or possibly bluish sweatshirt
gaining on me in the night, wrenching

From Vienna it’s picture-postcard all the way.
Tell me, was ever such a land at ease!
The fat farms glistening, the polished pigs.

From Vienna it’s picture-postcard all the way.
Tell me, was ever such a land at ease!
The fat farms glistening, the polished pigs.

Three is to recapture isolation’s ease among the adolescents,
Slim curved and tortured body of Mississippi.
One finds sarcastic zealous presidents

Now you are happy, and you are more than happy.
         You swan of Lancaster.

I can see the traces of old work
Embedded in this page, like your bed
Within a bed. My old desire to live!