After the sporty dolphin show
you might wander down the dimmed aqua stairs
into a darkness they have cut windows

Sometimes you wait a while for the bus—
the bus of happiness
probably—just now passing the fried pie hutch

I think it is well known now
how you can take one part of the country
and re-erect it somewhere else, how the abrupt, snow-streaked

There would be no more than this,
the quiet, grim grace of the spruce
and the far snow-wash trickling down

We were tuned like two crystal sets to the race stations
where we heard the saxophones of the Black Zion.

In the dark we crossed the borders of the Caucasus

Today we are going into shelter,
we are going underground to discover the passage that leads
to the next world. We will be happy there,
or we will not worry about happiness; we will make neat designs

In a nearly empty off-season cafe, just across
From the row of grand Saratoga hotels, I lost faith
In the elegance of the facades fronting Congress Park,

First there was the revelation that I did not matter.
There was a kind of freedom in that.
I could stand in my office above the garage,

after Nicole Sealey

o bitch. my good bitch. bitch my heart.

Sometimes love’s vagrancy (whatever you call it) 
overwhelms all but the most robust subscribers, 
and, dishonest as it may sound, the whole cramped enterprise