decide this one day not to mourn
abandoned places, all their giving up–
not to wonder who now occupies
instead the miscellaneous behavior
of persons inimical to the construct,
their narrows and slatternly resolutions
first the clamor, then the smear
massacres of faith like those of conquest—
bonfire, barbecue, conversion
meanwhile loss conceived of as return
somewhere out on moonbeam lane
the discovery people not like you thrive
our former gods and vast undoing–
their atomic disappearance
you remember the dress, the words
the way moonlight made everything blue
the novel system of notation
we concede, we adumbrate the same
self who showed up for the hanging
they gather up the things you let go
the long arrow of the exorcism
the long count, the unbearable air
on behalf of your half, characters
transported to a past no longer past
the usual mummy and drugstores
sassafras, soda, little flying wheels
the observations of plain sense skewed
the official bully, her nimbus and wedge
fragmented discourse for a fractious age
and from nowhere the opening of
Ben Casey: “man, woman, infinity” ooh
the fathoms of your particular, darling
and how we made the gate to make the place