WORK AND PRAY

“None of us is leading quite the life we were at all prepared for.” -Renata Adler, Speedboat

1.

people are starting to come back but they are not the right people people are moving away but they are not the right people I have said terrible things and I have meant them

2.

you say tell him I sent you tell him rust is seeping in through the dents don’t you see it it is starting already look closely when it rains don’t you see it 3. we ate and drank in our work clothes and we laughed we were canaries in coal mines and birds in the hand anyway my point was anyway this was my point we grew up poor we spent our days on beach chairs lined up on the blacktop we were thirsty we thumbed through drugstore magazines

4.

now in your city light slices across the damp grass in the late afternoon now

in your city you offer your white belly to the sun dog city

all your dogs

5.

female fig wasps lay eggs in figs you tell me but if she enters the wrong kind of fig she will die trapped inside and

so hungry we were riding the escalator down to the train platform and you turned to me don’t you see it

it is starting already

the brush of your hand on my knee as we rode the train in silence facing forward barely breathing don’t you see it

IN APPROXIMATION

I tell you that I am afraid of dying and you shrug it off you say age is just a number like the price of beef or of real estate nearly two thousand square feet but the neighborhood is in transition and by that she means she is afraid to walk at night after you left for the last time it rained for days it rained and water collected at the entrance to the tunnel your hands still imprinted on my shoulders from when you flattened me against the tunnel wall you weren’t listening you were watching for children to run past us chasing a stray ball or collecting sticks it rains and then it doesn’t real estate is bought and sold you pressed so hard against me you left bruises later I undressed slipped rainwater from my shoulders let it fall to the floor and left it there like my sweater still

buttoned in approximation of this fragile human form

WATERSPOUT LANDSPOUT TORNADO

what set off the smoke alarm this morning you know I would watch all the buildings of this city burn down to the ground if I could do you remember the days we floated past the grand fazioni in the lagoon how I wanted more how I wanted all the men who grinning beneath the wide brims of their straw hats licked their lips their trousers creased all the women draped in sundresses soaked through to their rosebud nipples let us praise all the books of maps we drew with our fingers while we floated on our backs drifting dissolving the funnel clouds that swallowed up all the smaller acts of weather waterspout landspout tornado they called our tornado a rare occurrence as if that were enough to explain us as if that were enough to explain my preoccupation with the birthmark on your left ear I have sketched all the embattled plazas in the dirt have given names to all the sacred places called them st cecilia’s lantern and st. lucie’s wishing well and st. sebastian’s balustrade and turret write this down down at the piazza we will dance our fingers interlaced is this all that you had hoped for alone backlit here are the hours I have fathered up for you in my cupped hands here are the maps I have drawn here is the nape of my neck take it in your mouth I predict another tornado will upend us as for you you have made yourself a landing place for birds all the tourists throw bread at your feet