Circulation

The solitary molar of a streetwalker
whose body had gone unclaimed
had a gold filling.
All the rest were gone,
as if by tacit agreement.
This one the morgue attendant claimed for himself,
flogged it, and had himself a night out on the proceeds.
Because, so he said,
only dust should revert to dust.

Songs

I

O that we might be our ancestors' ancestors.
A clump of slime in a warm bog.
Life and death, fertilizing and parturition
Would all be functions of our silent juices.

An algal leaf or a sand dune,
Shaped by the wind and basal and heavyset.
Even a dragonfly's head or a gull's wing
Would be too evolved and suffer too much.
 

II

Contemptible are the lovers, the mockers,
All despair, yearning, and hope.
We are such painfully plague-ridden gods,
And yet we think of God a lot.

The soft bay. The dark forest dreams.
The stars, snowball blossom big and heavy.
Panthers lope silently among the trees.
Everything is strand. Forever calls the sea—