I think all week I need to be lit on fire.

Why I am not content with the space heater

it's a mystery, I'm waiting, I frigged myself

with historic narratives at least a year old

or older. Letters.

Yet I cannot allow myself to use the word 'frig'

when another writer has done so before me

to greater effect. That I had ideas at all,

they seemed to me as mushrooms

growing from the body of my lover

just as they did to a character in the novel I read about

somewhere, yesterday, if you substitute

my horror of ideas with his of the mole itself…things

against a creamed or paled skin. I could act like that actress

on stage! But not having practiced enough,

how should I set about to practice?

Yesterday the parking lot.

She who has veiled herself: Grocery Outlet

day old bread aisle moved, NEO

scratched into a bench at BART.

Clive consults the timetable at home, that's why

I have to wait so long. I don't. I'm holding

a sixteen dollar and five cent ticket in my hand

the least you can purchase with a twenty dollar bill.

This line of inquiry narrows, pain of constriction

somewhat eased by a change in subject:

my recent fear of own shadow

and/or chasing of own tail.

Turns out the moving darkness in the water of my bath

was me, so who's the pervert now? This way

relieves no pain. Leaping from the corner from myself

or I back away from the water I lurked in

out of practice but full of desire

I want to act.

I am waiting to be lit on fire

somewhat engaged

and occupy a dirty house, semi-cheap

feelings hang around me from the night before

but NOT from any pain of excess

GET ME? There are feelings unlinked to my behavior

inasmuch as conversation can be deemed behavioral.

We were just talking.

Not getting me.

It seemed unwholesome.

The woman a few seats down introduces her sisters

Gary and Larry. I wonder

if it's possible to get sick because the two stations

match so exactly, even if I only saw

one station tonight

twice in rapid succession

because I got lost on my way to the party. I went around the block

and right back down the stairs. I was worried that people would see

or not see the glory of my Beloved,

my double chins, fear them

for no one knows the day or time

of their arrival. Moreover, I have a fine sense of direction

but cannot distinguish left from right, speak no other language

besides the one I write in, and my eyes may taste of almonds

or match their color but never, never their shape. Basically,

I deliver myself into your hands. For what man

even catching my gaze before he exits at the Powell Street station

can save me for longer than the three minutes

it took to write this down? My beauty lies in being

extraordinarily thin-skinned, full of shame

& cute. There are those

who can't refuse

my potent spunk! Little red berries come rolling up the drive

and there is nothing more beautiful

or terrible

than little red berries, followed quickly by the desire to sweep them up

so they don't get tracked into the house.

The date is January 3, 2004.

I often hear Elizabeth's voice speaking of Bernadette Mayer

while I am writing, and have idealized the notion I received of poems

and poems made out of trash. I can't stop wishing for this poem

a smooth and luxurious interior

which the voice of Elizabeth may sometimes inhabit

along with something else. I think about big trash day.

And everything I have eaten or looked at

sentences not strung together

so much as they are worn,

worn out in full view

just as my new set of clothing arrives. I may not be clean

but I am somewhat naked. And what is the point in having fine sensibilities

unless they can be ruined by weather, or placed in the box for jewelry

and smashed? Look upon the face of my watch.

Look upon its gears, observe my watch held under the glass

and above us, don't argue, the sun.