fromThe Lichtenberg Figures
§
What am I the antecedent of?
When I shave I feel like a Russian.
When I drink I’m the last Jew in Kansas.
I sit in my hammock and whittle my rebus.
I feel disease spread through me like a theory.
I take a sip from Death’s black daiquiri.
Darling, my favorite natural abstraction is a tree
so every time you see one from the highway
remember the ablative case in which I keep
your tilde. (A scythe of moon divides
the cloud. The story regains its upward sweep.)
O slender spadix projecting from a narrow spathe,
you are thinner than spaghetti but not as thin as vermicelli.
You are the first and last indigenous Nintendo.
§
for Ronald Johnson
The sun spalls the sluiceway into shards.
The blind man finds an equivalent for adult films.
The rabbi downs a hin of wine and gives
it a rest. A votive candle is delicately set
into a small, decorative paper bag
weighted with sand and placed in a row
along the dock. The poet will never walk
again. Not even in poems.
Lightning bugs set down their loads.
Tonight the women have the feel of men
who’ve worked. For you I have retired a word.
It is the only word that never appeared in your books.
It was the only word you didn’t know.
It begins with the letter O.
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