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nostrils

piglike

I try it

again.

me

women don’t know how to love,

she told me.

you know how to love

but women just want to

leech.

I know this because I’m a

woman.

hahaha, I laughed.

so don’t worry about your breakup

with Susan

because she’ll just leech onto

somebody else.

we talked a while longer

then I said goodbye

hungup

went into the crapper and

took a good beershit

mainly thinking, well,

I’m still alive

and have the ability to expell

wastes from my body.

and poems.

and as long as that’s happening

I have the ability to handle

betrayal

loneliness

hangnail

clap

and the economic reports in the

financial section.

with that

I stood up

wiped

flushed

then thought:

it’s true:

I know how to

love.

I pulled up my pants and walked

into the other room.

another bed

another bed

another woman

more curtains

another bathroom

another kitchen

other eyes

other hair

other

feet and toes.

everybody’s looking.

the eternal search.

you stay in bed

she gets dressed for work

and you wonder what happened

to the last one

and the one before that…

it’s all so comfortable—

this love-making

this sleeping together

the gentle kindness…

after she leaves you get up and use her

bathroom,

it’s all so intimate and so strange.

you go back to bed and

sleep another hour.

when you leave it’s with sadness

but you’ll see her again

whether it works or not.

you drive down to the shore and sit

in your car. it’s almost noon.

—another bed, other ears, other

ear rings, other mouths, other slippers, other

dresses

colors, doors, phone numbers.

you were once strong enough to live alone.

for a man nearing sixty you should be more

sensible.

you start the car and shift,

thinking, I’ll phone Jeanie when I get in,

I haven’t seen her since Friday.

trapped

don’t undress my love

you might find a mannequin;

don’t undress the mannequin

you might find

my love.

she’s long ago

forgotten me.

she’s trying on a new

hat

and looks more the

coquette

than ever.

she is a

child

and a mannequin

and

death.

I can’t hate

that.

she didn’t do

anything

unusual.

I only wanted her

to.

tonight

“your poems about the girls will still be around

50 years from now when the girls are gone,”

my editor phones me.

dear editor:

the girls appear to be gone

already.

I know what you mean

but give me one truly alive woman

tonight

walking across the floor toward me

and you can have all the poems

the good ones

the bad ones

or any that I might write

after this one.

I know what you mean.

do you know what I mean?

the escape

escape from the black widow spider

is a miracle as great as art.

what a web she can weave

slowly drawing you to her

she’ll embrace you

then when she’s satisfied

she’ll kill you

still in her embrace

and suck the blood from you.

I escaped my black widow

because she had too many males

in her web

and while she was embracing one

and then the other and then

another

I worked free

got out

to where I was before.

she’ll miss me—

not my love

but the taste of my blood,

but she’s good, she’ll find other

blood;

she’s so good that I almost miss my death,

but not quite;

I’ve escaped. I view the other

webs.

the drill

our marriage book, it

says.

I look through it.

they lasted ten years.

they were young once.

now I sleep in her bed.

he phones her:

“I want my drill back.

have it ready.

I’ll pick the children up at

ten.”

when he arrives he waits outside

the door.

his children leave with

him.

she comes back to bed

and I stretch a leg out

place it against hers.

I was young once too.

human relationships simply aren’t

durable.

I think back to the women in

my life.

they seem non-existent.

“did he get his drill?” I ask.

“yes, he got his drill.”

I wonder if I’ll ever have to come

back for my bermuda

shorts and my record album

by The Academy of St. Martin in the

Fields? I suppose I

will.

texan

she’s from Texas and weighs

103 pounds

and stands before the

mirror combing