"when we come upon a place of absolute vernacular integrity, where people are also buying things...we are reminded of Disneyland"

the quilts of Gee's Bend, the afternoon sunbeamed fork of your country tits,
the natural miles of dirt roads, the windows opened by pipe bombs, cows lowing
“good afternoon Charlie Pride, pork on buttered toasted white bread,
hello highway 85, venture capital on Dawes Road, a house expanded 185 times itself.”

the intensity of Martha Stewart, walking like a velociraptor across the dome
of a Hudson River penthouse—“please let me carry your triple tiered platters
of venison steaks and soybeans and sushi rolls, and please, let me feed you
your sushi—your pressed orange juice sloshes out of their goblets, but I am dashing.”

across the terrazzo, looking down onto the black streets and thinking
of the wings of a black swan, the lights of the cars and the gentle hum
of the air-conditioning units hang along the sides of buildings like Cleveland
mayflies, in powder grain and the barrels of husks we carried. the aristocratic swatting off

of our bodies, flowers of cabbage in a low field, we dance on a coffee table
in our cowboy boots, drifting magnolia fruits in a desperation blue willow bowl.
dear wallowing bird-flute, brute quilts hung in the windows of Alabama,
the cozy white feel of a cup filled to the edge with spice smells,

the mutability of the senses, the cloying choke of apple butter, the various truths
of what you are missing or forget having, I’ve seen it happen in other people’s lives.
I learned I never wanted to use my hands across the skeleton waistline of Canada,
or the tethered buck-wild flesh of a bullcock, I have cut everything out,

and remember, though the smell of the evening faintly like pancakes or bacon simmers,
the night like the savage Martha Stewart’s wild smile remembers,
and it is waiting, on all fours, houndishly, its breath is your corpse unwinding itself,
it is a bloodfreak, it is peeling itself open, it is unleashing itself, it is against you.