perhaps you remember the one whose moon-eyed lovers were reflected within the ringing gravel } none of them yet the maid of honor or a best man’s cattle, hogs, goats grunt in discomfort, sniffing the usual rounds without any drum healing wounds at least only to burn away { somewhere in the distance

discard piles of weekly magazine employment classifieds . dirty dishtowels, need replacing . ditto, the car . boxes stuffed with working papers, political reprints from college and later stint as academic editor . one more career detour, Swami . save file folders for reuse . don’t need any extra expenses now . former jobs, like former loves . what can you do at the moment? rat out pigeons from under the eaves, their smell of warm barn rot . dust and mop . Ajax or Comet the bathroom sink, tub, bowl . remake the bed after slippery sheets expose toes to night chill . clean the parakeet cage, heart yearning for its owner . how I’d love to trade that old English bicycle, with its flat tire and second gear that strips out, get a sleek ten-speed . instead, you need new blue jeans and pour a fresh motor oil in the Subaru . indoors, lay a wood fire but don’t ignite kindling, the coy display to signal a homebuyer . not all of the ash of this failure is mine

forget it’s a voluntary parade what the window discloses or opens depends on the wind from the economy to extramarital animation collapsing into finicky provocation some ascribe to deranged exactitude erupting as interlocking torches in the hallway night yet they all blame Washington insisting everything’s a mess let me tell you indeed yessiree

talk of spiced sausage all you want or the angelic art of seduction all come clean in the springing but circle the wagons or your ways if you will sometime when riders approach, demanding their due we’ve no cavalry to the rescue what runs on the line honestly, not since the divorce have we sensed any mid-afternoon vehemence comparable to that blazing dirty bird union . let me tell you of the plagues of Moses . invest the rest wisely

does he ever have a name other than “the handsome young prince” or is he merely an anonymous provider of wealth, comfort, and status, a male figure, nonetheless, out of range of any rival, consequential to fallopian tube roulette which is, of course, a fate we all share besides, to say “they lived happily ever after” is the greatest irony in all literature so read the story over again and again to those in the throes of childhood as our own cruel joke or empty promise awaiting our own crown or at least an electric guitar with the drums, bang, bang, bang

such gain, left to carry the rubbish after this unsettling and upheaval, all crashing down, the lonely conflagration increasingly desperate for a phoenix in some dawning how often one begins over, take the bookshelves, reorganize religious literature, find that ten-year-old letter initially appearing unopened sent just before the marriage with its Far West a nebulous daydream now I continue in the opposite direction rebounding perhaps keeping time as pigeons return quietly that’s all Thanks and g’day

ream the medicine cabinet, fill penny rolls for the coffee exchange, throw out old prescriptions and that old slide rule, already obsolete, then it’s off to the office supply store for carbon paper and metal bookends, return editions and LPs to the public library before the art stack goes to my ex-wife’s aunt where I’ll hear how her latest opening went screwy . back home, have a beer, phone my lover, take a call from the watch repairman warning if I don’t pick up her metronome they’ll sell it off, so once more out I go, how ’bout you?

thinking the cleaner bag full I discovered the rubber drive belt had snapped meaning a trip to the shop and the next day was Sunday as she had left it all the same, dust and sweep, wet mop, and rinse, move tall stacks about, sort items but what if we don’t? refill the trash can, love, after all, would expose this . honestly I won’t quit so simply whatever past is mine . pay dearly, of course, for these revelations. so make room for more labor . brush and chop, returning to the same spot rather than scurry onward

at last, reducing the list drawn into this homestead with the ash of that upbeat tone of previous years, a forced smile, wishful thinking, or pure resolve no longer the Yule Letter, high school classmates, even college . ashram . Binghamton or teachers . other writers . Iowa. Western Reserve . Baltimore . former loves . Old Order elders . what do these people mean now in context? So, sincerely