after Jane Bowles
everywhere somewhere

a woman complains in a supermarket

but the gold

in our sleep sustains us

no body believes

one bad thing can happen after another

no body can be a dog in their own dream

which means no body can be a dog forever

pleased in our despair,

does anyone need reusable bags?? we scream. i have 57

unkind men fail to love us.

lovely idiots, we go on with our songs

singing rococo, of lavish towels, strawberries,

broken bottles, little crystals

we lie back, nervous as cats, enjoy the haul

we have our health….

we open the windows to a soubrette

screaming in a romance language

something about — the price of cigarettes, strawberries, the recordings,

dexamfetamine, the abortionists, the vivid machinations of the statesmen and the fish

piled stinking along the river, the emails,

the dogs —

we shut our doors. we say what in fuck’s name

was that

we do not speak a word of french

we sing instead — come the revolution

come the revolution it will turn out right, burnishing the rusted

taps of our kitchens, come the revolution come now do not vex yourself

with the screaming, life is difficult enough,

come the revolution to follow our dreams

will not make us victim to our nightmares, come the, we will not cower

in our timed out shopping carts like frightened rabbits, come, some of us, will be spared,

though some of us will not, have not been spared a single thing,

come the second tragedy we will combat the first tragedy

which has been curdling within us, we will flee

from the second to the third tragedy, giving the impression of motion,

also, we remind each other, remember “tenderness”

remember that without imagination, reality is peaceful,

remember that all you really want is a bearable life. and no, you do not know

where the cockroaches go at night, or

what menace is present, in the room, with you now,

or what gutter puppies wait

for you to spill the milk of your human kindness, or whether

you should guard it like a wolf

but you know that no body

can be treated like a dog forever

not even a dog
Material reworked from Two Serious Ladies and Blue of Noon.