we are always asked
to understand the other person’s
viewpoint
no matter how
out—dated

I have lain in bed all day
but I have written one poem
and I am up now
looking out the window
and like a novelist might say

It’s never quite right, he said, t
the way the music sounds, the way
written.
It’s never quite right, he said, a
taught, all the loves we chase, al

too much too little
too fat
too thin
or nobody.
laughter or

starving there, sitting around the
and at night walking the streets f
hours,
the moonlight always seemed fake
to me, maybe it was,

death wants more death, and its we
I remember my father’s garage, how
I would brush the corpses of flies
from the windows they thought were
their sticky, ugly, vibrant bodies

they talk down through
the centuries to us,
and this we need more and more,
the statues and paintings
in midnight age

we like to shower afterwards
(I like the water hotter than she)
and her face is always soft and pe
and she’ll wash me first
spread the soap over my balls

when I look back now
at the abuse I took from
her
I feel shame that I was so
innocent,

Go to Tibet.
Ride a camel.
Read the Bible.
Dye your shoes blue.
Grow a Beard.