I’m six days late
and this is known as a
delinquent period.

You seem very far from home
and who would after all choose a grit pocked
pavement to languish on

Clouds spit on the coffin,
wring oily rags, splash
a woman, her violin
cased in sunken purple.

And did she break your heart?
A woman asks, perhaps imagining
A fallen chalice . . .

Four years in Knockaloe was a living
inspiration for inventor Joseph Pilates.

At thirteen I am competing with James Joyce,
encouraging pain, at the very least discomfort.

And here you are slid from the rain
under my door, “s” -ing along the cool
checks in the hallway.

What is here for us but these walls and the
pearls of sweet yearning behind them