ALMOST
Bang away at your life,
break its back, dance on its ribs,
sick of love, go back to
November, to Spain, to the strangers
who don’t care what you do,
go where your spinal column bends
like a river, where your neck
curls up like a worm, where there are
no books, just beach and water,
swamps of talk. Forget we
almost found the drum to pound
the world, to beat its surface with our
names, to live forever.
For you, happiness is an explosion.
It’s the pounding of fat black tankers
on your rivers, your aching rivers.
—from Rattle #1, 1995
