there were going to be words

i.

there were going to be words

since orphaned in the gap

between all of my great lakes and your
isle of man

in the midst of themselves,
defeated

too tiny for funerals

we had to mourn in the crannies
of our lives:

on long car rides
between the meal and its dishes

ii.

I wanted for instance to use the word
allele

to describe the things my mother gave me
and my father and then
the things I, lonesome and male, earned

ate the bones, declined
the games of cards

and what are the leftovers
of my little life

what is there to show for it?

iii.

there was to be, too, a warning
about the men

who wait outside
me like a house

they ring the doorbell of me
dirty the carpet of me with their muddy feet

their feet
fill me with stink

you can smell them because the molecules
slide into your nostrils and fill niches

I would love to bathe these men
pick their brains

but they won't let me see them in the nude

iv.

a memory occurs
with the rudeness of lightning bolts

the nipples that seemed somehow on the brink
of slipping right off

the cinema that was empty but I swear to God
was not, I had company
a dark and sneezy ghost

the food that kept coming

meanwhile,
in the world that is actual

I stand in line for pizza
folk become more blotto and more

somebody threatens to call the cops
but does not

a woman looks like she's going to
vomit but does not