I died when I gave her
the rose, hadn't ever
felt so gravely dead.
Warren—the brother—
resented me, tore
the rose (or so she said).
The house of the dead
is a mile long with candles:
the moon is out
but they don't talk about the moon.
The marble I named doug
has been dead at least 29 years,
maybe a few more. I had
all the other marbles in a circle
for a funeral, just west
of the register, the point
of doug's disappearance.
And Pricey's been dead
a long time—though I heard
him with me one hallucinogenic
afternoon in a dune shack.
And all those people
I took for comfort—
what a joke it seems now,
the white and the black
of the past, not dropped off
yet—and all this I have seen lately
about the drop,—
the moon will drop in another thousand years
the planet earth may drop before
my penguin drops whenever I kid him
about the crow flying
and all of us live a life of comparison.
Even on a starkly cold night with a moon
staring from whiteness
the house of the dead falls asleep
much more slowly than most houses.
Too many stories being told, too many disappearances,
too many drops.
|