was a truly amazing man
he pretended to be
rich
even though we lived on beans and
when we sat down to eat, he said,

I awakened to dryness and the fern
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled co
surrounded me with their uselessne

yes, they begin out in a willow, I
the starch mountains begin out in
and keep right on going without re
pumas and nectarines
somehow these mountains are like

I was shacked with a
24 year old girl from
New York City for
two weeks—about
the time of the garbage

once
we were young
at this
machine. . .
drinking

not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus

when Whitman wrote, “I sing the b
I know what he
meant
I know what he
wanted:

I still get letters in the mail, m
men in tiny rooms with factory job
living with whores or no woman at
booze and madness.
Most of their letters are on lined

little dark girl with
kind eyes
when it comes time to
use the knife
I won’t flinch and

these things that we support most
have nothing to do with up,
and we do with them
out of boredom or fear or money
or cracked intelligence;