is sitting in the car outside the market
having chicken and wine in a paper cup,
listening to the laureate in his hay-mowed way,
writing on the envelope of a speeding ticket
showing me zooming in a photo, but it's a warning,
salting with free salt, thinking maybe a matinee
okay? modern lives, modern lives
poetry's like anything else, complicated
when you want living simple, outside effort,
nothing but sweet time, a mess to resist
and do the tastiest thing i know,
suck time out of the swirly world,
til i've polished off the widest part
fit enough for sea
to return--who knows?--as a fat blue shrimp,
eating myself to my next appearance
il papa es morto and Sisters of the Incandescent Word
sleep in an alley in the black sun, old masters' style,
habits leaned to the ancient stone, feeling softly
beyond imagining, the coarse deshabille of love,
their days in the vineyard, drinking under trees