I am so ill-stanchioned myself, you
know, just me, that I can’t get on
without like, going to work, getting
away from myself into the affairs
of others, the elevator slowing and
catching still on the remnants of
old floors, plunging easing up: I’m
always hungry for compliments, anything
to bolster me lofty: I consume compliments
like bricks tossed into a black hole
for bottom, a solid floor,
but it all oozes away, undermined
by an oily, massive slip: I
should go in the brick business: I
might help myself out a little: I
should throw chunks of old foundation
in there, the steel rods ciliating
concrete: a few bales of ginned
cotton, absorbencies: a couple of
barrels of sticky-wicky: some jungle
temples: a ridge off the top of the
Rockies: that little peninsula that
reaches out from–oh, well: sub-
continent? where there is no love
nothing will take root: the hollow
will not fill: earth’s walkabout
will not arise: steps leading up
will not surprise: dreams will
not fog off the higher elevations of
ascension: what is left, after love,
to live with? anger, guilt, anxiety:
I speak not just of the loves of
thighs but of the love of another
more, say, than of oneself: there
are those whom to lose soaks direction
out of the tree boughs, prevents
snow from settling in the granite
crevices, makes daylight an odd
visitor: the stanchions give in,
wither like sea oates in a hurricane:
and then all the world cannot fill
the hole which becomes a trillion
miles of nothing
master bias leaning 