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I want to know what’s

going on.”

he’s my new one.

I’ve never seen him

talk to anybody

else.

the cart rattles

along a little bit

behind me

then something

falls out.

he stops to pick

it up.

as he does I

walk through the

front door of the

green hotel on the

corner

pass down through

the hall

come out the back

door and

there’s a cat

shitting there in

absolute delight,

he grins at

me.

Big Max

in junior high school

Big Max was a problem.

we’d be sitting during lunch hour

eating our peanut butter sandwiches

and potato chips.

he was hairy of nostril

and of eyebrow, his lips

glistened with spittle.

he already wore size ten and a half

shoes. his shirts stretched across a

massive chest. his wrists looked like

two by fours. and he walked up

through the shadows behind the gym

where we sat, my friend Eli and I.

“you guys,” he stood there, “you guys

sit with your shoulders slumped!

you walk around with your shoulders

slumped! how are you ever going to

make it?”

we didn’t answer.

then Max would look at me.

“stand up!”

I’d stand up and he’d walk around

behind me and say, “square your

shoulders like this!”

and he’d snap my shoulders back.

“there! doesn’t that feel better?”

“yeah, Max.”

then he’d walk off and I’d resume a

normal posture.

Big Max was ready for the

world. it made us sick

to look at him.

trapped

in the winter walking on my

ceiling my eyes the size of streetlamps.

I have 4 feet like a mouse but

wash my own underwear—bearded and

hungover and a hard-on and no lawyer. I

have a face like a washrag. I sing

love songs and carry steel.

I would rather die than cry. I can’t

stand hounds can’t live without them.

I hang my head against the white

refrigerator and want to scream like

the last weeping of life forever but

I am bigger than the mountains.

it’s the way you play the game

call it love

stand it up in the failing

light

put it in a dress

pray sing beg cry laugh

turn off the lights

turn on the radio

add trimmings:

butter, raw eggs, yesterday’s

newspaper;

one new shoelace, then add

paprika, sugar, salt, pepper,

phone your drunken aunt in

Calexico;

call it love, you

skewer it good, add

cabbage and applesauce,

then heat it from the

left side,

then heat it from the right

side,

put it in a box

give it away

leave it on a doorstep

vomiting as you go

into the

hydrangea.

on the continent

I’m soft. I

dream too.

I let myself dream. I dream of

being famous. I dream of

walking the streets of London and

Paris. I dream of

sitting in cafes

drinking fine wines and

taking a taxi back to a good

hotel.

I dream of

meeting beautiful ladies in the hall

and

turning them away because

I have a sonnet in mind that

I want to write

before sunrise. at sunrise

I will be asleep and there will be a

strange cat curled up on the

windowsill.

I think we all feel like this

now and then.

I’d even like to visit

Andernach, Germany, the place where

I began. then I’d like to

fly on to Moscow to check out

their mass transit system so

I’d have something faintly lewd to

whisper into the ear of the mayor of

Los Angeles upon my return to this

fucking place.

it could happen.

I’m ready.

I’ve watched snails climb over

ten foot walls and

vanish.

you mustn’t confuse this with

ambition.

I would be able to laugh at my

good turn of the cards—

and I won’t forget you.

I’ll send postcards and

snapshots, and the

finished sonnet.

12:18 a.m.

beheaded in the middle of the

night

scratching my sides

I am covered with bites

kick my white legs out of the sheets

as the sirens scream

there is a gun blast.

I go to the kitchen

for a glass of water

destroy the reverie of a roach

destroy the roach.

a gale comes from the North

as the man in the apartment across

from me

inserts his penis into the rump of his

4 year old

daughter.

I hear the screams

light a cigar

stick it into the lips of my

beheaded head.

it is half a cigar

stale

a Medalist Naturáles, No. 7.

I walk back to the bedroom

with a spray