Not the mental lethargy in which the days enveloped her
Nor the depleted breasts not the hand that never knew
tenderness nor eyes that glistened
Not the people dragging canvas bags
through the ragged fields
Not the high mean whine of mosquitoes
Not another year of shoe-top cotton
No more white buck shoes for Henry
No peaches this year on the Ridge, and no other elevation
around to coast another mile out of the tank
No eel in L’Anguille
Not the aphrodisiac of crossing over
Not the hole in the muffler circling the house
Not a shot of whiskey before a piece of bread
Not to live anymore as a distended beast
Not the lying-in again
Not the suicide of the goldfish
Not the father’s D.T’s
Not the map of no-name islands in the river
Not the car burning in the parking lot
Not the sound but the shape of the sound
Not the clouds rucked up over the clothesline
The copperhead in the coleus
Not the air hung with malathion
Not the boomerang of bad feelings
Not stacks of poetry, long-playing albums, the visions of Goya and friends
Not to be resuscitated
and absolutely no priests, up on her elbows, the priests confound you
and then they confound you again. They only come clear when you’re on your
deathbed. We must speak by the card or equivocation will undo us.
Look into the dark heart and you will see what the dark eats other than
your heart
The world is not ineluctably finished
though the watchfires have been doused
more walls have come down
more walls are being built
Sound of the future, uncanny how close
to the sound of the old
At Daddy’s Eyes
“Pusherman” still on the jukebox
Everybody’s past redacted
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