(a poem inside a poem)
That is, why should they get two stabs at it while the virtuous
trudge along at half-speed, half-mast, halfhearted?
If an ordinary human can pull the fattest cashwad
out of the slimmest slit,
and the fullest pudding out of the skimmest milk,
then it might be possible
to insert a meager life in Andromeda
into, at the very least, our wide pit of sleep.
Duplicity after all takes many, not merely two, forms,
and just the very idea
of doubleness, twinniness, or even simple, simpering
regret, or nostalgia, implies
a kind of Andromeda,
a secret world, the hidden draft, the tumor-sibling,
the “there-are-no-accidents” plane we could learn to fly.
There’s always that irreducible “something extra”
to life on Earth:
The way some men won’t “talk that way” in front of women,
not wanting to astonish us with their secret man-ness,
as if there is another world bisecting ours,
living among us like an unspeakable mold.
The recent invention of the double-decker pill,
equally effective on sunny and rainy days.
On the wall, a plural mural: a diptych of Paula ’n’ Wally’s.
What fallopian and what fellatio! Like a Nan Goldin oldie,
but an impostor. Okay. Why not try to offer more
squalor no matter who the photographer?
When someone’s called a “lifer” it means that person is trapped.
A “lifer” has no real life but what do we call the rest of us?
How terrifying it is to try trying!
Which frying pan will best
kill the loved one? Which will
make the best omelet?
The books on the bookshelves are touching themselves
like virgins. But I’ve had them.