She was 44 and, no, not a woman
as such, but something that medicine
left nothing but bad stories and bloat.
That was on the day of the pushing.
* * *
She sucks up his talking and makes him
pay for it, like a summer singled out for
death, and harps on him for being him, now.
This on the same day that love coughs.
* * *
There were policies against such somewhats,
like the tender heart of November, always
caramelized together in mush and spice.
Odd pudding, he’d say, and nevermind.
* * *
She takes what a woman takes, alone
and to the point of the middle afternoon,
all day building a ceiling of honeysuckle and pouch.
She is that, that which compartmentalized her.
* * *
Thirteen days after the beloved, she velvetly
sweat out the rank and rigor of the bankroll.
The crippled cock, ordered like cheap Chinese.
The bars and shops of art and artifice, love.
* * *
Everything is orange and burnt and ember,
now a force that bleeds over the streets in
remembering and alternate remembering.
She is the ark and spark of a live wire.
* * *
Later, she will be the kind of woman who
men look at as a force of scare, an old Jenny
whistling like a kettle, the me sold solid of it.
Scared of words just because they exist in the air.
