if I step
too far out of it,
I’m dead. The figure
at the top left corner is Securitas.
No rent! No work! No wages!
No more! For those thinking
of disturbing the peace, let
the hanged man be your warning.
In order to write this poem,
I paid daycare $523
for the week. Make sure you premix
the bottles, bring diapers. Make it worth
something, this time. Mayan
countdown clock to Mayan
countdown clock, two bodies,
uncivilized, in a bed wanting
the water of the world to
give them back a pyramid.
Also, the bronze head of Adam.
Also, the world of children,
their toys, the plastic imitation food—eggs,
miniature cereal boxes, deformed mirror
to the real. I could not keep working
to make money for the people I despised,
nothing is right, but I couldn’t afford
not to either. Late at night, Chris
said “I hate my job.” The hydro-geologists
have to give permits to Gulf Oil
for more water or someone
will lose their livelihood. It was winter
in Florida, the path to all principles
of all inquiries led back to this
one statement, like a recite
from Publix: I was teaching
the humanities again.
In the garden of the fallen
aristocrats, where no one sits
on the lawn, it is as if heaven is on
one side, hell, on the other,
and somehow I have slipped very far
into the abyss between the two,
an abyss that contains suns
the way black holes
do not give back the history
of light, the way a galaxy
turns like a clock
into the desperate desire
for water and these flowers
bloom like idiots,
live as thieves.
Chris’ cryptic texts
from West Florida: “No coffee.
nuclear power plant” and a picture
of some industrial
map of rust.
O Apollinaire, eau-de-vie,
in this garden, which is a mockery
of all gardens,
in this Bed, Bath and Beyond
of the intimate, remember me,
I know what is real
and I will remember how to steal
back what is mine.
