For Naomi Lazard Sometimes I can’t wait until I… —Naomi Lazard My friends are tired. The ones who are married are tired

Cement up to the neck & my head packed with unsaid words. A gullet full of pebbles, a mouth

I am not interested in my body– the part that stinks & rots & brings forth life,

Could I unthink you, little heart, what would I do? throw you out with last night’s garbage,

The man under the bed The man who has been there for yea… The man who waits for my floating… The man who is silent as dustballs… The man whose breath is the breath…

Broken ivories playing the blue piano of the sea. We have come

Dearest man-in-the-moon, ever since our lunch of cheese & moonjuice on the far side of the sun, I have walked the craters of New…

Sweet muse with bitter milk, I have lain between your breasts, put my ear

You sleep in the darkness, you with the back I love & the gift of sleeping through my noisy nights of poetry. I have taken other men into my tho…

I was sick of being a woman, sick of the pain, the irrelevant detail of sex, my own concavity uselessly hungering

The lessons we learned here (fumbling with our lunchbags, handkerchiefs & secret cheeks of bubblegum) were graver than any

For David Karetsky (April 14, 19… Putting the skis down in the white snow, the wind singing, the blizzard of time

For a long time unhappy with my man, I blamed men, blamed marriage, blamed the whole bleeding world,

Next birthday I am thirty-six, & formed (for all intents & purposes) in tooth & claw.

On the first night of the full moon, the primeval sack of ocean broke, & I gave birth to you