1. Convalescent Home
High on painkillers,
the old don’t hear
their bones hollering
anything tonight.
                   They turn
harmless and furry, licking
themselves goodbye

They are the small animals vanishing
at the road’s edge everywhere

2. The Myth
The go-go girl yawns.
The cheap dye
her mother swiped from
a five-and-ten has turned
her hair green,
but her eyes are flat
and still as thumbprints, or
the dead presidents pressed
into coins.
                                She glints
                      She is like
the screen flickering in
an empty movie house
far into the night.

3. Spider
In the bruised doorway
that has been jimmied open,
even the dark spider shines,
tears at its belly
and moves sideways a little
on its web, swaying,

while my hand on this pencil
knows nothing,
moves back and
forth, takes hold
of things, is never sorry