Something hooped you in these white sheets
a portable thunder

panic-hooded. The bare morning
already gone. There might be nothing smaller

than a canary-yellow bank
of planted tulips. But when it breaks

& gives up its red throat there is brain-
fever. You w/your anthropology

text & the ecstatic estrus of its chimpanzees
low in the library.

You knew your body then,
didn’t you?

Logic a glass butterfly
trembling the table’s edge.

Don’t lie about important things.

                         *

The body is a bizarre shell
coated.

Change channels. The big
skip.

You were in the soft tissues.
Who introduced you to the lyric

bully breath? The forever in & out? The broken red
cup & its crushed blue twin?

Here is the sadness of your unsettled gut.
Here the hands you hold. The body in its

grocery. Sheets stale from love.
Let’s really have.

There are certain moves you learned
to make. Wanting the red wrapped

meat. Ladies & gentlemen,
the halving crack. The crowd at its feet.

The blue cup rising. Dear powder latex. Dear sterile
pan. Dear red donkey. For every

suffering a blue balloon. For every hurt two
plastic cups. They say different things at the same same time.

                         *

Outside music. My brain a measure.
The corner market chilled w/strawberry buds & aluminum

cans. The shape of a clef
takes a G. Now we’re in the middle;

paper bags & city-green.
Those bank buildings. The ocean

somewhere. Frisbees elliptical.
Whole notes spangle from the trees, slate

gulls slinging themselves at the electric
lines. Disordered light ruffling.

You don’t need to understand the whole thing,
you say, waving your hand at the world.

Making this accidental, the plastic spoons &
streetcars.

This brought that. You are here. It’s that simple,
& what do you mean

by simple? An hour tied to an hour.
Breath unfastened from breath.

Hands making picture frames & flying motions,
the cobalt chord & ambulance.

Low stonewalls flung w/bright
jackets. Don’t look

at me. Look at all this
suchness! Pick 1 thing

& disbelieve.