Knowing our lives a drowse towards death (attended by dogs & children) how can it not matter

I sit in the black leather chair meditating on the plume of smoke that rises in the air, riffling the pages of my life

You are the first muse who came to… The others began & ended with… or a glance or a kiss between stan… the others strode away in the poin… or were kicked out by the stiletto…

The cover of the book is astral violet, & within it are poems, most of them

Cement up to the neck & my head packed with unsaid words. A gullet full of pebbles, a mouth

A bespectacled artist called Lear First perfected this smile in a sn… He was clever and witty; He gave life to this ditty - That original author called Lear.

If you ask him he will talk for ho… how at fourteen he hammered signs,… raw with cold, and later painted b… in ladies’ boudoirs; how he played… for two weeks in jail, and lived o…

The lover in these poems is me; the doctor, Love. He appears

When I am an old lady the young men will come to me & sit trembling at my trembling

Male? Female? God doesn’t care about sex & the long tree-shaded avenue

On the first night of the full moon, the primeval sack of ocean broke, & I gave birth to you

We have a small sculpture of H… Nothing would surprise him. The beast in the jungle was what h… Edith Wharton’s obfuscating older… He fled the demons

For David Karetsky (April 14, 19… Putting the skis down in the white snow, the wind singing, the blizzard of time

I put our books face to face so they could talk. They whispered about us. I put yours on top of mine. They would not mate.

For centuries we have lain like this, our warmths intermingled, our hearts beating the same two-step,