Residual
These syllables strike our lower
register [branching: fog]. Who whispers
like a friend, “Bêche-de-mer,”
I wring out towels and pillow cases.
Sunday afternoon. Check on
your sister, you sign. She won’t speak
anymore. Glass trees.
Soapstone box. You package her father’s
old shirt there in Queens
[arms crossed at the chest] posing
unpalatably. I imitate you
imitating him like a tourist on the tenth
night of spring in a country bent
to numb what could hurt but doesn’t.
San Simeon
Dionysus, get up. Your friend is here. Smoke
on the portico, leafless, head to toe in gold.
Angus cattle roam past tomorrow,
startle into place; this home, measured by this
low thrumming. Get up. Wash your face.
Honeycomb patterns a handkerchief
rave, though he’s not my guest.
I won’t let him in. Hurry, mind the blue
marble. Sweet smoked hickory is a sarcophagus
between rooms cracking. This year
love will find me ready for it
helping ma with taxes. 24 adorned faces
will make a sentence, the old kind.
Suppose I wait longer than I should. Eve,
Oshōgatsu: oh, interminable want.
