That Rat’s Death

I’m proud

that I fed my avocado

to the mice this

week

To see that scattered dust

around the hole

I felt dis-

appointed the apple had

been spared

the throbbing

soup, home

he said it’s a storm

it’s a storm I thought

am I allowed

to ask entire questions

to take this

space alone

you bobbing

you painted in my dog’s

face so care-

fully

some kind of violence

stretches the thought so

long and allows the horns

of words to touch each

other. I think of him

taking

this much space.

you don’t know about this

dish towel

for that matter

who was I in another time

giving the tails so much

puzzled that these spices

went someplace else

they did today in a sandwich

the empty hall into which I am

reading

the empty country

an entire country

I wanted all of them

how I would like

just one to pick

things up in

its cities and its rain

its coast

the outer coat

78 rpm

silly

news-

papers

turning

cat on a porch

and other countries

nearby

& home ready for me

when I have

something to say or

show

if ever

my empty mistakes

my empty vase

my empty powers of horror

my empty sex

o bring the snow

that rat’s death

killed me because i

would see it for days

over and over and

it hardly could be the same

rat whose insides

whisked the street

we don’t think that war

is such an incredible

mess but it was

just yesterday

and in ancient poems

years ago in the past

dying the balloon just

bursts it cannot

bring u back again

the huge cool breath

the lake doesn’t want

you anymore or her

arms her sweet

muff or breast the storm

the past.

but no I won’t leave

my cheese out for them

anymore and I must be

the last person in the world

in new york to read him

who told us about mice

that sing & fill empty auditoriums

like us and our singing hearts

our formula for bringing

it out. Pulling the receptacle

apart watch the tiny ship

floating on it

smithereens

I ducked the tail edging over

taking a little bit more. The price

of wider concepts is not

choosing your drops oh

flicking me off reminding

me of you everyone yell at once

Two Rabbit legs jutting out

I keep my childhood

around almost more than every-

one and a mouse can share

my house wet toot tootsie

it’s kind of great the whole

thing is relative. Since I ad-

mired his mountains I imagin-

ed I was in his landscapes

but opening packages is occurring

all over the place. That’s a

strong image and I feel like

the smallness is directly rooted

forgetting to use the new cal-

endar I planned. These

marks (I imagined) are the sources

all the milk flooding wildly

over the rolling hills and out of

the sun’s comical eyes. Not tears

but creamy drops

of mammalian weather.

I’m given real information

and the most difficult part

is blindly creating the space

where the parts I can’t

see or even hear spread out

(like the night in Paris when

I walked to the movies

) onto my desk and the surrounding

hills into the bleachers where everyone

is pounding themselves bloody

in salute of the hunt

all I ever wanted was dinner

or at least his

love the delight I see

in him is equally empty for anyone

& probably that’s his

stealth. Inner lake. There’s a car a maroon

a colourless oval I can imagine the

seats and the feeling of hearing

a song as we’re weaving

over hills. There’s no break. Ev-

erybody I ever saw in my

seacoast community is already

facing the problems huge and

gloomy I grant you and the

night spills on my keys which

are splayed over the counter and

outside it’s light. & they are flip-

ping their cards every one of

them.