Whatever it was I saw--it was fragmented. I saw a blemish in most of the things I did. I saw armature as something invented by someone I once met. A scaffold, maybe. Maybe we met on the scaffold. I must learn to see past the blemishes in the things I do. If I can move past that scape, then, maybe, I'll be able to droop a little to the side of contentedness.

My sister was the one who called a hibiscus a hibiscuit. She was the one who couldn't swim yet, and I was supposed to watch over her. She could have stayed down like that. We wore suits that had styrofoam loads in them. As we improved our swimming, we'd get to take out one of those styro loads. I pelted a kid. I wasn't supposed to pelt a kid, but I did. I watched what I did through a fence. Between each of the fence's slats, there was a scrim. Eachs skrim had a different color to it. She was a little too heterodox. I was skulking.

Very many formenting guavas beneath the guava tree. The outside of the guava is yellow. The inside, pink. I was bereft, maybe. But of what. I was false. What I thought was false, but I thought it close enough. And what if I am negligent? And what if I am not really bereft, but, really, faking it? I smell some mock orange, I guess. I have smelled the mock orange. Or I didn't smell it with any volition. I smelled it because I had no choice, because I was standing right next to it.

Whatever I was, it was boxed in. I was put into a box and taped. Given nothing but a die cast car for all my efforts. Watching tapes next to me. The whir of plastic through rollers. The whir of images in front of my old man's face. What it came down to was a cuff I was supposed to receive but never did. Let me say this sotto voce. I never received it, the cuff I was supposed to get. Weak pinkies, I guess. He tried to tell me that he knew someone who died from eating raw potatoes. Or, the thing was, a potato root was grafted to a tomato root. And all the poisons still came up and pumped in to the tomato--this poisoned someone later on. This poisoned person had ridden bikes. This person would speak to someone in a shack occasioanally caustically. Would you please pass me the hematite? The blood stone? Do you know your crystals? Do you know what it's like to have to wear a gold ring that's been fitted with an amethyst? Do you know what that is like? And your husband is tinkering with machines he makes as you attend the UFO meeting. Too much traffic. A life in a hovel. Somewhere, the idea was to wear two more scarves than anyone else. The child spent too much of his time designing badges he'd like to win and wear.

Smoke tow. What I had was not an aversion to a woman. I asked her if she found me disgusting. And she did. I sat in a swivel chair. She sat in a swivel chair. But our orbits never did anything. Saw a wretched movie with her. My favorite part was one small part in a hospital--when they were watching something on tv. But she liked the end. It wasn't that she was windowdressing. It was that she was dining with someone else in a window. So I saw everything. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn when she went out with me earlier. She wore jean cutoffs often. Sort of strange. Small black shoes. Too often, she touched the tip of her tongue to her lips. A sort of strange way to thank. I was happier. I thought it was a race, when it wasn't. I thought the end of it all would be when I sold the piebald creature I had found. It wasn't a horse, a no one seemed to tell me it was valuable. I had consulted several arbiters--all of whom stank of pox. They had pox because it was in fashion. I have been told that no one can tell a proper story. We have lost our raconteurs. We have lost them to curtailed cocktails--lines of them, at least, in front of the new signage. What do you say to this misery? What do you say when you see someone studying? What about being callous, especially with gestures of your hands? Take the little man off the glass before you drink. Stand in your garage and watch leaves come down. Tainted. Unhygienic. Things said of my influence. Or is it an effluence? Bootless, I suppose I should brag so much about my socks. I have no boots, but, sure, my socks are fine. But the more I walk, the more I ruin my socks. Maybe she was too kittenish, but she wasn't. Maybe it was my antibiotics? But it wasn't. If you're going to wear a new sweater on a date, don't go in for the frottage. You'll only ruin it.

tops of the spot

I was a tyro, I suppose. I sat on a cane chair, and she did, too. Earlier, her friends had dropped her off in a white car. They had white teeth. A blind man knew who had white teeth. He always knew who had the whitest teeth, and everyone thought he was magic. Really, though, he just listened to whoever laughed the most. He knew that person to be the one with the whitest teeth--what since she showed them off laughing so much.

She was not frail, but she had broken more limbs than I had. She knew what it was like to be encased, to be carapaced. She once had lice. She once drank much cream--a carton--because she saw it in a pink and white container in the fridge.

This desultory relation of mine, I thought I saw him in a hallway. As it turned out, he was younger than I was and was in a woman who had the same name as his mother. This was not unstable to him. I asked him if I could sample his armhair and he said no. I said what of your headhair, your liphair. He never said yes. What he said was that he'd speak to my father and tell him to get all his sights lined and his rounds cased. Speculation as to how much throbbing. Is the flux bloody or phlegmmmed? What of my shabby cuffs and collar? What of my shappy face?

Anyone as thin as her should have worn all sweaters. So what of the nap. A grasp, a jerk, a sheet pulled tight over her face. Pulled tight over her face, the sheet flattened her nose. She screamed into the sheet, and a wet spot opened where her mouth was or would have been.

the marble has pimples

Whatever it was in the sky, it scudded. It scudded, scarped. The scarp face of the rock cliff. What if I were to rub my face against the cliff. Looking up, I see something scud. This something in the sky is not black as it should be but green maybe. Dark green. Hephaestus puts weight on his sturdy legs and asks about boxing. Cabalistic, this is. Gnats on a meal I made so carefully. I am not a part of this outfit. I am part of this outfit, but I do not approve of it.

I pulled a creature out of the sea with some help. The creature was green and had ridges on its neck. It had a beak--but if this beak was for coral--for reef--or for me, I could not tell. This is what I drooled upon. The first one I drooled within. I drooled in it. I drooled on it. I drooled with it. Legs that a bandy. The man is a father. Or he isn't a father. He is someone that's been brass hobnailed into one place. He has a hook made of metal. He has a hook made of bone and of wood. What he would like to know is which hook you would like him to chase you with. You may not say none. Not one. Not any. You must pick a hook so he can chase you. This man, this father, this man hobnailed to a floor with brass tacks.

Fraud liquor in a green jar. It smells strong, but it isn't. Sweet talk me, please. Give me a wheedle and see if I will budge. I made lint come off her on November 17th. Now she works in a hospice maybe. Palliative for the dying. What answer do you have for triage?



A shrike is a magpie. Miss Lonelyhearts skinning a rabbit in his legerdemain. Show me Hephaestus sprinting. Have him help me win the Soap Box Derby. Fine. So I am nonspiritual. So I have dismissed her as hulking. It is not her frame that is hulking. Finally, I put a stop to all kneading. I had them all measure themselves up and oppose me. I wanted them each to ditto my fright.