In   the   last   winter   on

earth   I   walk   through

the   woods   giving   a

poetry reading.
I give it to wolves gazing out from

behind big clumpy weeds wearing

snow wigs. My own wig was pure

pelf, my poem a cadenced paean to

pelts.  Wet pants beneath belt.

When there’s no more winters

where are all these wolves gonna

go? The trees melting into the

forest floor, it’s going to

be that hot, everywhere

in the world.     Thank God I hate

skiing and hockey and every other winter activity

except for slipping down a slim path to a hot hot

tub, with you in it.
In my former life

I was a snowflake,

drifting into someone’s coffee to make it

that much shittier

to drink. You can just tell.

Although I’m trying to be sweeter now,
sweet as banana-fried

sundae, swimming in

chocolate lava.
In the life before that one I was a motherfucking

wolf! Six to eight years I medium-raged in a

still pretty chilly wood. When lil

fascists came to suck at my nip I

said nope!   I ate plums and drank

plums.    I knew what I was, host

to an army of ticks that loved

powdered sugar snow caught in the

clefts

of my fur. A wolf,

I’d tumble around the snow, mouth

all smeared with fruity

mess, giving poetry

readings.
I guess when there’s no more

winter there won’t be any more

falling

into precarious ice and

drowning in the lake.   Twelve

months

of lemonade cut with freeze cups,

chewing up chicken wings

ravenous, sweating on the porch,

translating Horace’s beautiful poem

about walking through a field

right where taxes meet vestigial

commons. I mean right where, so close

he can

see it and put it in his poem,

singing a song to himself about how

hot this ass looked, bouncing on top

of his toga.   Snapping the cot.   Roman

solstice. Gasoline smells coming

off a chariot.   Pretty hot. The

poem

only lapses into racist reference twice.

A record for him!
It’s going to be so hot when all

I want to do in this incarnation is

stay cool.   Antarctic.   Barbecue

on Neptune cool.   Eileen Myles cool.

Walk through woods, reading my

poems to the wolves.

They are discerning readers.   They love

my new work.   I make eye

contact with them through the

reeds. While there are still reeds,

while there are still wolves, I’m

out there walking

in            ridiculous

weather,      in      a

ridiculous     get-up

tweeting     at     the

cubs.