Lunchtime Prayer

A snail sank — grand in puss and rime, on three coils (equals

one tea-wheel) white.

The wheel brings the bill, the bill — bald.

Everyone goes in for the table,

the tablecloth is of water. One says huh — one morning high on a grape I dropped off — a dunce — 

and exacted my height, and rightly so: it is a height I won’t have made alone.

It is a height erring on all sides.

The bride slip’n slides on her back to us — then on her head (a ball-point pen), quicksand in her hair.

A man beside her, his mouth is like a dark arch for her. My mouth is death to you!

In this new rhythm how can I say, how can I thank you, for I feel a blessing running through my tale now, it shines — 

intestines — that I will can.