I try to keep the promises I make
—for each one broken breaks the world—and seem
inhuman: no crack, no fissure, no mistake.

I bought a camera, though there were
many reasons not to.
In spite of the reasons not to

All me are standing on feed. The sky is shining.

All me have just been milked. Teats all tingling still
from that dry toothless sucking by the chilly mouths

The film begins in Venice
As conceived by the dreamer before
He begins his journey, which ends

First came the age of gold, then silver, steel,
papier-mâché—and now glass: the transparent

briefcase I bought in Rome so you can see

Judith, I’ve seen the CPA. She showed me two
indomitable columns, numbers rising like the legs
of a statue god. And where they add up, where

Cutlet carved from our larger carcasses:
thus were you made —from spit and a hug.
The scratchy stuff you’re lying on is wool.

Night arrives solid and heavy
more than several blocks long—to displace
its weight and float like a tanker over us.

The sidewalks are wobbling in the god-awful heat.
        Ninety-eight in the shade,
Where there is shade, as New York lies locked under
        Layers of high pressure

In the living room of the trailer, the father of the woman
I love calls the family into a huddle.
Dinner is over, the charcoal is ash on the grill.