Versatility's the key
        the key we're gonna be
        be we're gonna
        imagine most any way
        imagine & really breathe it
        up out from the bowels
        down across & into our lives

        Why must my deepest feelings be rooted
        to tragedy: somebody dying too soon, too soon?
        I have a persistent cough, a small cold & it's not a
        death rattle, not

        A boat I have elected myself the captain
        Attempting to steer ashore
        The turmoil rising from below
        The thunder pounding from above
        I am surrounded---

        They have suffered a metamorphosis more terrible than just exile on the Black Sea or Gregor's uncomfortable bed now that he's a cockroach. They have suffered the anguish of living now not then. The exiled one finds himself in the streets of Baghdad looking for a brothel to stop the invader's bombs from wracking his ears. This love artist travels in drag, donning the veil to avoid being taken into the Republican Guard,

        AND LIKE LORDS
        THE ANGLES WERE MET

        AND LIKE LOVE
        THE ARCS WERE ...

        tape hiss

        spicer's crazy
        after lorca

        after x after y after z

        It has to do with spreading herself across nights and beds.
        Days for a lover. Lights out for long hours. Driving
        outside limits. Speeds and towns. And whether things are moving
        in or out of focus. It has to do with who she is
        to herself. How the room would look if the window were gone.

        she must have been a million miles this way toward me I wasn't
        sure she must have been asking for a way
        through what I couldn't be sure there would even be road to
        travel I never asked from which direction
        she had been led at which sign
        she had turned from which place and why
        she wasn't saying exactly where she thought she would be

        I take Central Avenue instead of the highway knowing exactly why: generic aerodynamic bodies and stomp on the brake, cut-throat drivers fill up that interstate. Central Avenue has cruisers, proud of their souped-up, custom-painted carros that purr like a cat, wheels that stick out from the frame and make a giant floating skateboard.

        lying. She told me not to
        and discover a new form
        tango-like. Bitter. Or was it
        ensconced? The trail
        of black smoke taper
        and thin candle- it's
        ceiling-high. The ISBN
        quietly feels her up-