Excluded from Frescoes

    Thank you for the gift. Never have I seen

    a more thoughtful tea-strainer.

    For you I'm striking a silent movie pose.

    For instance， I step out and take in the moon

    like a tourist. It puts tiny gloves on the ferns.

    It's bigger than life size.

    I've a room here just for sitting. If I want

    I fetch some music to slap me around. I've three other rooms——

    in this way the house resembles a cow's stomach.

    I have the feeling we'll be excluded from frescoes¹

    despite the fitful way you loved me， Alice，

    I'm confident we're finally on our own.

    If I need to think of you and I do

    I let telephone wires paraphrase² the landscape

    till there's just a city block， a sooty building，

    you settled into a chair with your legs and hair up

    and your face adjusting to that new weather

    right after the TV's been turned off. Hello.

    Just past the hill here is the truckstop

    borealis. This is Barkeyville.

    Maybe we could argue over ice cream.