there are times when I am fascinated by politics
and the rollicking play of the market is a sort of sweet
drug, made into a gladiator fight
between the two colored corners of this universe,
rushing always into bright contact and history falling
away in the process as little glass pieces
for children to pick up and store
among the seashells and pink summer hats. Because there
are also times
that the economy seems to me a dull hell, Wall Street an imaginary
game played by outcasts on soviet playgrounds, their child-hands
slipping around on the rust and exposed nails, exposed lines
of upticking stock
that falls just as the apocalypse might, the market shooting down
like the steep drop of a woman’s dress as she steps from the lace
to your bedroom floor,
her pink feet cold and beautiful on the wood. And elsewhere,
a man is shooting himself in the mouth
because an archangel won the midterm elections, or because the news
reported the sunrise story of a dictator
kissing his dying mother’s hand.
But I care more about this: that another boy
woke up from flannel sheets, deciding to become rich, join
the patriarchy, and marry a stupid
college girl who can’t say much about foreign policy
or production curves. But she
can kiss well, and the human parts of him lie awake
to imagine his baby crying
into the white breasts of this someone
who brings all the sex into politics.
My generation is just another morning glory,
pigmented with blood and technology, and meant
to color the starlight swathe
of Time’s whoring.
So I wish I at least hated the Systems consistently. Because when I
am indecisive, I am just like
Narcissus
staring down at a puddle and searching
for the human soul.
the last pavilion 