MOSTELLARIA
I
get in the car//I started to turn but//something pretending to be//familiar//a cigarette//a grand statement too big for//together//on your left//the door//& red interior//I felt better in the backseat//I’m lying//I actually felt bad//until just now//at the restaurant//in Greenwich//close tabs//& honest, my father wasn’t//in a white Cadillac//& crazy//where we were going//does it matter?//I shrugged//Bingo//I could have mentioned//that I was married//crushed//which paid double//fixer-upper//from California//wine bottles crush better//tossed off the bridge
II
the kids//feel abandoned//in the end//a place where//she made me lie down//stones//against my shoulders//my head//a boulder//blocked out//the sky//she brought down//his coffee into the yard//in pajamas//after we’re all dead//the phone rang//is that for me?//I thought//last night//no. Never
III
fish heads//lacquered//roasted//over wood//& washed clothes//I don’t remember//how the conversation started//but Singapore//was waiting//impenetrable nowhere//& the rainy sea//of course//ocean breezes//I personally loved a sweet bargain//& ships//tickets & rupiah//& a thousand others//on board//families//claiming space//with beach blankets//getting hungry
IV
you don’t have to wait//until morning//someone always answers//death//the body, carried//in a basket//& I am a widow//a wake//wake?//awake//again I carefully//painted my mouth//lined the pulpit//with stars//elegant//& very much electric//at the kitchen table the sun is coming//in the window
V
madmen//in the morning//they are lovely//afraid//embarrassed//& you don’t answer//he calls again//to say//he is pretending//he is waiting in the rooftop//bar//it is very dark but still//braver//let’s be honest//you are having another birthday & going back//to the hotel//what the hell?//even being dead//doesn’t scare you//when he answers//& you tell him