A trick of October light
made festive the trek we
took to the empty beach,

A fallow field in January, crisping
under our boots; the red barn, slanting roof

that slumps and decays; the seed-stitching

It is desirable that as little happen as possible.
An aristocrat said this, knowing (I hope) it was hopeless.
Inevitably,
sporadically (like clockwork,
unlike clockwork), something
goes thlunk into the pond of you,
and the normal expires.

Star of a gnathic nightmare, boasting narrow
snout and jutting lower jaw, scissor
teeth and scaled cheeks

Two old men, father-in-law and son-in-law, Liszt and Wagner, 
    are staying by Canal Grande 
together with the agitate woman who is married to King Midas 

Thunder unrolling over the vulnerable city,
purple and ink blue, above the huddle of workers
scrambling to commute, some to a bar where

In the good old days mutations appeared everywhere, 
and every second baby was a monster.  
I wish I could have lived then, neighbor 

‘We went to New York,’ Kathy said.
‘Colin was painting well then, and he was
on the edge of a breakthrough, he said.
Breakdown was more like it. He was drinking,

Something's bothering the dog tonight—
the neighbor's pig, maybeit's not fair
the way they feed that thing. Your hair, under the porch

As he starts with her tippet, takes off
her bonnet, moves on to fingering
stay and skin, my brain cells stray