that last breakdown did occur,when the valves quit,
when the tired pistons
cracked, or the
crankshaft failed and
you sold it for
junk
—you then had to watch it carted
away
hanging there
from the back of the tow truck
wheeled off
as if it had no
soul,
the bald rear tires
the cracked back window and
the twisted license plate
were the last things you
saw, and it
hurt
as if some woman you loved very
much
and lived with
year after year
had died
and now you
would never
again know
her music
her magic
her unbelievable
fidelity.
for five years I have been looking
across the way
at the side of a red apartment house.
there must be people in there
even love in there
whatever that means.
here blows a horn, there sounds a
piano, and yesterday’s newspapers are as
yellow as the grass.
five years.
a man can drown in five years,
while the red bricks
stand forever.
I hear sounds now like dancing in the
air
great bladders of blood are being loosed in
Mariposa Ave.
sweat drenches my temple like beads on a
cold beer can
as armies fight in my head.
I see a woman come out of the redbrick
apartment house.
she is fat and comfortable
the slow horse of her body moves
under a dress of pink carnations
playing tricks with my better sense
and now she is gone and
the bricks look back at me
the bricks with their
windows and the windows look at me
and a bird on a telephone wire looks
and I feel naked as I
try to forget all the good dead.
a band plays wildly
LOOKAWAY, LOOKAWAY,
DIXIELAND!
as they empty bladders of poison
and bags of oranges over Mariposa Ave.
and the cars run through them like poor snow
and my pink woman comes back and I
try to tell her
wait! wait!
don’t go back in there!
but she goes inside as
my bird flies away
and it is just
another hot evening in
Los Angeles:
some bricks, a mongoose or two, Chimera and
disbelief.
(uncollected)
he met her at the racetrack, a strawberry
blonde with round hips, well-bosomed, long legs,
turned-up nose, flower mouth, in a pink dress,
wearing white high-heeled shoes.
she began asking him questions about various
horses while looking up at him with her pale blue
eyes.
he suggested the bar and they had a drink, then
watched the next race together.
he hit fifty-win on a sixty-to-one shot and she
jumped up and down.
then she whispered in his ear,
“you’re the magic man! I want to fuck you!”
he grinned and said, “I’d like to, but
Marie … my wife …”
she laughed, “we’ll go to a motel!”
so they cashed the ticket, went to the parking lot,
got into her car. “I’ll drive you back when
we’re finished,” she smiled.
they
