135

I carried the cottontail out
To the back field and layed
Him down in the collapsed
Hollow under where the bank
Had all fallen away and I
Covered him with leaves.
His body was wet and not
Light, and I had to hold
The neck. I could hear the
Others calling me back but
I didn't care. And now he
Can rest and not get his
Guts all pulled out on a
String by a hawk or have
His eyes stabbed in. Poppa
Used to say beautiful things
Die. He used to say there
But for the grace of God
Go I, when we would see the
Processions, for funerals.
But he went there, grace or
No. And when I was a kid
Lou would call me Rabbit.

134

Sal waited, as minutes elapsed.
Then the door moved inward to
Admit a gigantic man dressed
In a shapeless mustard suit.
His complexion was olive and
He was bright with perspiration.
Seeing Sal, his eyes whitened
And his face engorged and it
Became sallow. He backed into
The wall making wordless, empty
Guttural sounds. Sal discharged
The pistol over his forearm and
And the shot pinned the giant
To the wall. He slid down it,
Leaving a long crescent trail
Of blood, and fell to the floor.
His expression was rapt for a
Moment, and then became static.
His jowls ceased to shake, and
His eyes grew pale, and parted.

Sal breathed, holding the gun.
He came nearer and overturned
The body. The exit wound was a
Rosette of flesh in the endless
Expanse of the man's torso. Red
Seeped from the well of broken
Fabric. Sal stood back from him
And took aim and put a second
Round where the spine and head
Were conjoined. The body jolted.
Sal stood looking at it in the
Dark of the office and reached
In his coat for a cigarette and
Lit it and went to the desk and
Picked up the telephone to dial.

133

He left the light on
All night. It was absolute,
Until the curtains paled.

*

The child's hair was like
A dormant fire. His chest rose
In sleep, sparrowlike.

*

Did colour precede
Shape, or shape colour? We are,
As we are, our own.

*

The love he bore crept
Like a pale, new light. He got
Up, quiet. The child stirred.

132

Magellanic cloud,
Rears like a pale horse from the
Dolphinfish's gut.

*

Stars fall in the dark,
Sparks from the Promethean
Forge. They are fading.

*

In a berth of dark,
Om sits, buck-toothed, golden, holy
All, singularity.

*

He sweats, he is still.
The eagle arcs above. All man:
Prometheus bound.

131

In eddies upon
The water of night's bodies
Galaxies pinwheel.

*

Of the dark's slow fish
The most corniced and massive
Is Andromeda.

*

In eons to come
We will meet Andromeda:
An embrace in fire.

*

The deepest darkness
Lies at the bright epicenter
Where stars have grown old.

130

Pale birches waver above the
Water, their branches white,
Ribbonlike, gathered heads of
Growth, caulked, somnolent.
Foxbrush pines rise over
The hill, silent and brown,
Their bodies packed beneath
Them in serried rows like
Filaments of baleen. Fires
Have scarred whole sections
And these lie white, bald,
Lapses in the continuity.
There is an atmosphere of
High light about the place.
The pines seem to have been
Interrupted in the process
Of breaking weightlessly and
Lifting from the terrestrial.
Standing water pools beneath
The birches. In it is shown
A sudden, fallen world, one
As bright; inverse, trees
White roots in herringbone,
And later stars manifesting
Their glow of spawn, husk—
All conjoined, in archeol.

129

We used to go to carnival
On the edge of town some
Nights in the summer. One
Year they had a ferris wheel
And we would walk under it
And stare up at the lights
Arcing away and then back,
And feel like falling into
Space and John would grab
Us and we'd all wrestle
In the scrub. Were always
Clowns there, some of them
Butch old muscley ones I
Liked and others like limpy
Ghosts, all staring and you
Would cling on John's arm.
We'd win prizes at stalls,
One year a pineapple that
John cut with his penknife
And we ate in the darkness
Under the old willows by
Where the carnies slept in
The daytime. It was sweet,
Yellow. As if we had run away.
No use to say, but I sure
Do wish you were still here.

128

Sal stepped out of the bar
Into the din of the street.
It was noon, earlier there
Had been rain and it was
Rammed with slick taxis and
Slow blue hulks of articulated
Trucks. An immanent thrum.
He weaved through standing
Traffic in his greatcoat and
Corduroy slouch hat raising a
Hand if the cars came on.
At the far curb wreathed in
Vent steam the cornerstore was
An island of light, neons and
Striplights, betslips, tropical
Fruit, malt bottles, medicine.
Ahmad's. He went in and made
For the rear where there was a
Grey, unmarked door which he
Tested lightly and then pushed.
He moved silently down a dim
Hallway and through the portal
Of an empty office and sat down
In the vacant chair. He stared
At the gap in the doorway and he
Rested on the edge of the desk
The thin barrel of his Sig-Sauer.

126

Isabella is on the bed and he
Is watching her, looking down.
What you want for me to do,
She says. There is a double of
The electric light suspended
In the dark undrawn window.
There is a double of Pierrot
In the glass, still in his coat,
Still bleary and cold from the
Street. He gestures uncertainly
As if about to speak. She says,
Is no more money, no extra.
She touches his arm. He says
Slowly Pretend like you love me.
Please. She looks at him, mute,
And they begin to remove each
Other's clothes. There is a lit
Cigarette in the ashtray and
The smoke uncoils above them.

She is crying and he is holding her
By the shoulders where she lies.
As if he is holding her in place.
They barely touch, he is almost
Crouched above her body, holding
Her as she shakes and she cannot
Look at him. I'm sorry, she says.
She reaches for the dying cigarette.

125

Out in the street the air
Flowed through a mass
Of capillary junctions and
The main throbbing routes
Like a warm liquid. He
Felt its successive waves,
Making his way through
The crush, using lights of
Convenience stores and the
Vacillating neons above the
Club entrances as a lost
Mariner might constellations.
The bodies of drunks came
Leaning over his five foot
Frame as they passed and
As one fell into him Harlow
Gave him a close hard left
To the gut and saw him
Stagger down. There was a
Beating in his temple and a
Feeling of gravity and the
Lights were falling away
But it faded as he walked
On. He could feel the gun in
His sock, a reservoir of
Concentrated, silent energy.
It had rained and the
Stoplights had bled into the
Road. The stars ground on
As if attached by spokes to
A great dark wheel. And he
Thought Somewhere behind
There is an engine room.

124

It was a heavy night,
Humid, dull yellow and
Stagnant, the air full
Of the sound of traffic
And air conditioning and
Bars turning out. Harlow
Crouched in the alleyway
Taking the few rounds
Out of the snub and he
Put them away. He rolled
His pants at the ankle
And put the snub in his
Long yellow tennis sock.
He cracked his knuckles,
Both hands, and stood up.
The mouth of the alley
Was roaring and bright
Like the window of a car
On the subway passing
A station. He paused with
A hand on the dumpster
To look up, past massed
Fire escapes and grilles to
A cramped outlet on the
Heavens. He thought of
The cashier, slumped to
The floor behind the till.
Grey, the gash the pistol
Butt made growing livid.
He spat. Above him the
Stars were close, yellow.

123

He dreamed. Light flickered on
In a room of his past life:
He stood beneath the bulb as
It shone into the dark of
His old apartment. The light
Touched adjoining rooms, and
His half-formed shadow fell
Into them and objects he
Had lost were rendered by it
Softly and he felt the space
Yawn away from him. Where
He stood his hair was afire
With the light but his face was
Obscured. He wandered away.
In the darkest corner of the
Apartment he found the bed.
There was something in it,
A shape, pale and unbright,
And his heart was hammering.
He could not see. Gasoline
Colours played in his vision.
The pale shape on the bed
Drew to him and he smelt the
Musk of hair and sleep and
She touched his arm—still
Drowsy, childlike—Columbine.

122

Pierrot slept and the light
Came up. The mime remained
By the bed, motionless, dark.
Hunched and elongated, he
Gripped his own vertebrae
At the nape, his bones mapped
In the curtain light and his
Figure as if drawn up into the
Gulf of the white, cold room.
His face was hollow now, and
Unadorned. No show in him.
He ached again for a hit now.
He felt as if his ribcage would
Collapse inward, his arms
Had begun to prickle with heat.
His head was disassociated
From the room, outside of it.
The man before him was white
As a corpse but the fat of his
Abdomen rose from the lower
Edge of his shirt. Fabrice knew
He was fallen in shallow dream.

121

That morning I got up
And found him fallen on
The floor in the passage.
I half woke him and I
Tried to get him up but
Still did not have the
Strength to. But he came
Awake and shuddered to
His feet and leant on me
And I led him to his bed.
Is it morning? It looks
Light. Almost. Just sleep.
Will you shut the door.
It's broken. Just put it to.
His eyes seemed about to
Spill out of his ashen face.
He looked at me as if from
Beyond a threshold. Just
Put it to and let me sleep.

120

At six a.m. I was drifting
In and out of sleep and I
Could hear a harsh sound
Like something gasping for
Life; someone just stabbed.
Like OH, OH. He was in the
Bathroom. I realised it was
The saxophone. A sequence
Of notes fell out like it was
Breaking and I heard Fuck.
Later I opened my eyes
And he came out of there
With it around his neck,
In a loose, dirty white shirt
With black buttons like a
Parisian whiteface with his
Eyes seeming to bleed they
Were so red and in the
Dark room his lit cigarette
Shone in the structure of the
Instrument, the only light.
She is my mother he said,
And laughed in the dark.
I was still fallen asleep—
He was like some visitation.

119

I had been in withdrawal
For days lying on that couch
Sweating and shaking and he
Had locked me in and taken
The whiskey into the bathroom
And shouted in there and
Crashed into the door only
Coming out to go and buy
Cigarettes. I had not eaten
And the night my tremors
Reached the worst he was so
Gone he just screamed himself
Hoarse in there, his girlish
Voice contorting and it was
As if he was speaking to
Someone. He crashed in at
One point, fell down barking
Out some German folk song.
That night at around four a.m.
My fever broke and the white
Pain in my muscles and my
Gut began to subside and I
Drank some milk I had found
Beside me on the floor. He had
Written on the side of the
Carton in blood the word LUNG

118

He vomited and white particles seemed
To flare in his vision and dwindle
And he felt as if he were roaring
Out his innards, as if suddenly he
Would bring up a dark lump of
Himself and the skin would fall empty.
The light had been on but now it
Was dark and he fell back from
The bowl staring upward, and there
He saw as if suspended from the
Ceiling a chain of dull lights in
A soft gold aura, and it was dark
Yet. A string of them and then it
Thickened in coils and then a loop,
Long and slack. Like a noose of stars.
There was a low inchoate moaning
Coming from his throat. The room was
Suddenly full of stark light and a
Screaming mechanical noise and
From the noose there hung a black
Shape of cloth like a cowl. Now it
Was dark again and he was cowering
In his own sick and the cloth floated
Down. He felt its softness cover him
Lightly like sleep. He was sleeping.

117

He could see the electric clock
On the wall, grey, batteries
Running down. It said Timex
On it and it was ten to three.
He was arranged in the bottom
Corner of the bathroom like a
Dropped puppet. His head angled
Up at the clock as if twisted
Or broken, his eyes black, fixed.
Something unnatural. His hair as
White as his skin plastered to
It. His body in a bad posture.
The clock drew something up
Out of him, as he watched it.
It was all reeling in his head
And he could not break out
Of it by will and he slided to
The floor as it was coming in
In the black like rushing colour.
The dark that colour is of.

He passed out. There was a man
At the bar with a feathered
Fedora. And a clock on the wall
The colour of whiskey and he
Came to and began to vomit.

116

Harlow came up to the register
And pulled a snub revolver
From his belt and he put it
To the head of the cashier.
He was dressed in sneakers
And black pants and a yellow
Jersey, no. 24. He was small
And black and his thin head
Seemed to protrude crookedly
From the loose frame of his
Shoulders and his thin ribcage.
The cashier saw the aisle beyond
Him was empty and dark, blue,
Prolific with white bottles and
As if stretching into a vacuum.
Sweat formed in his mustache.
The store was a system outside
Of them, and they were alone.
Empty the register and hand
It to me Harlow said, quietly.
Hand you the register said the
Cashier. The child let there be a
Silence a moment and then he
Cocked the pistol and ground it
Into the forehead of the cashier.
You do not have to do this the
Cashier said and he was shaking.
Neither do you Harlow said.