Poetry

Now when I get personal
I have only one thing to say
(a dead gay once told me,

I loved you, New York.

The way, at first, Tina loved Ike, loved even the winged
Effort of his anger, loved his punch-drunk backhand in flight,

Oh, obstreperous one, ornery outside of ordinary
protocols; paramilitary probie par 

excellence: Every evidence
you yield yells. 

Don’t dream it’s over you don’t
know what’s it’s like it’s like that
& that’s the way it be near me be near

Seeing again
your
face […]

I say archetype, but I really mean
messenger.

When I scarcely know what error of mind
made all brick, stucco, ravine, ale, and song fail
and all floorboards flee except 

It hit me in a noisy bistro—

the muted frequency— 
Jimmy Cobb’s brushes were fine sand

I can still see it, just a touch of what
you might call its lip, or maybe a long knife-ready
underbelly. The sturgeon moon is swimming