In a Cathedral of Only Dark

                                                                                                                                  Rothko Chapel, early new year

In every black there is
              violet. I am speaking to you,

              violet. When you come to the
precipice of your life and sit
                                          in the dark.

              Once a woman
drove out where
              the stars sharpened

hard. I’m writing this
                            on the back
              of a receipt. The stars sharpen

like there’s desperate light
              behind. I like ugly dialect
best. And roots

              that rattle in the frozen
soil. Black alive wires
              wanting out of

themselves. I
              quit drinking
so that I would find

              this, the world
a frail hull. How a coin
              of false gold twinkles

              on the floor
                            of an empty
room. I took drink away

knowing it meant I would trudge
a black sand beach
past trash-strewn harbor towns

a long time. Knowing
              I would trudge. But how long

is the dark? A man blackens
a canvas
alone. Tired child, you are lost

a long time. How the old years of joy
              lodge in you like fevered
stars. Worn-wood lodge

in some forest, the present.
              I am saying there is good

              in asking, good in asking again,
good in staring and asking. Though I don’t

know. How the dark is made
              of so many

smudges, how you can call
                                          that prayer.

How dark is made
              of bareness, of

doors, of gold.

---

Procedures

To my friends
who all live
in other
houses,

I write suicide notes
with a needle dipped
in salt water.

I write them
on the neon wrappers
of lime and rose candies.

Then I toss
them in the air

and let them drift
to the dull
floor

and I go out
for groceries.

I cross some food
off my list

and talk
to the cashier.

I go home.

Now I don’t
want to die.

The floor
where I glistened
with morning sobs

is splendid
with false

petals.

---

Untitled (Bed with Laptop)

Elsewhere,  some later year,  I’ll try to be good.  Today I don’t
care.  I’m mongrel-skinned, bramble-haired, white-seeming,
whatever.   And  I  am  abed  with a headache.   I’ve given  up
drink;   I  will invent  new  excesses  and name  them mine;   I
refuse  to get  the  scum  of myself  off  my  fingers,  jasmine-
scum,  low-jasmine,   too-sugared.   I  am  typing  this  finger-
stuck  from myself.  That boy kept his fingers in me for  years;
these are  mine.  I have smeared them on the keyboard,  lily-
smeared,  you get it.  Poets let  Apple  off easy:  it gives  them
shining  silver and a clean  page.  Capital  shines to let us feel
artful. Now in my bed reclines the laziest vandal.