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Those last days in Hollywood—
Where were we going? We didn’t know—
the johns came at midnight
and flung their broken condoms
to the ground; the next day, someone
dumped a car seat at our hedge.
Growling made it worse, those few times
we tried to sleep, curling from the sound
of hunger coming through the bedroom wall.
The furnace burnt the underbrush;
electricity sizzled in the pool;
dry as hands, the poison leaves
of the poison tree flew from the roof,
where one night, years ago, while
we watched “Play Misty for Me,”
wind played the fence wires’
anguished vocal cords, a lowing
loud as a mourning cow.
This imperfect world.
We are going, we are almost gone.
An accident: your globe dashed,
blue fragments puzzling the floor,
a cosmic question on your face.
