an afterthought,
meat gone rancid,
Anna Karenina in blue hose,
ephemerata.
Every need I’ve declined to marry
has failed me: moonrise and the milksops
I would have loved. Every daughter
who could have been my revenge.
Surprises have never been much of a surprise
and that has wrought thimbles of scandal.
Also, wheelbarrows and Puccini, the Eucharist
and television have all failed or been botched.
It’s getting on time and I can’t find one Schnauzer
who will nuzzle his constant heart in my lap.
Someone in Kansas plays a Stradivarian dirge
but even those wry notes are much too sweet.
My pigment drips more than Pollock’s.
My hard history has been sung.
See the palimpsest of my body,
its full-length chiaroscuro
laying stranded, lovely
in its ruins?