Confession

Down in the blue-green water

       at nightfall some selving shapes

float fluorescing, trance-dancing,

       trembling to the rhythm of

theodoxical marching-

       music that they hear over

the mere noise of the breaking

       tide. Above, stars in certain

places; along the shore roads,

       cars carrying people on

uncertain errands, sordid

       and sacred and all the kinds

in between. Halogen-lit,

       a woman gets down from her

all-wheel-drive velocipede,

       enters through an obeying

door a cyclopean store

       to buy unintelligent

fresh fish and other objects

       whether formerly alive

or formerly dead, she comes

       out again, a poor man calls

to her, selling his no-news-

       paper; the disastrous head-

lines smile and nod, they announce

       the plans of steel patriots

and undertakers, ad-men

       and fallen vice-generals,

doping their stolen crusades.

       But the woman has learned, as

I have learned, as all of us

       must keep learning if we are

to be good subjects, how to

       make of a newspaper the

mask of a locust, calmly

       put it on, and begin once

more to eat everything up.