Jack, I found the blistered tip
of summer
swinging over the peninsula's edge,
stoned rusalka run ashore in
Little Odessa w/ pastel wig
slanted, petrified in lip gloss
viewed from above, this place springs
a leak in my limbic system:
waiting for parents & their friends to
shop for discount furs
upsurge in adolescent perversions & the black box
glowing w/ bad channels just loud enough
knees in the carpet, figuring out how to make
myself shake & shake
in a way no visitor could replicate
or even mimic
but I kept a list
anyway
asterisks next to those
who came closest
***
I'm talking out my want,
Jack
& I'm trying
to remember which
where I'm in now
hang back in a mother tongue haze
shaping Cyrillic aloud
I just want to say аптека
say русский кассеты
say останься со мной
but that's later
***
We've been never since the start
& what to do with it now
I don't know if a poem could
go on forever, Jack, as you say
but Kim just wrote on Twitter
What else do we ruin our lives for
& Alice Notley wrote,
I'll f** up your life your cute life
& Masha Tupitsyn wrote, on Alice Notley,
Why shouldn't you not know what hit you?
I thought it'd be more years of
men repeating my jokes but louder
instead I just swallowed
something electric
what I mean is how doomed are we
who despite our intelligence
believe in retrograde panic &
the redemptive properties
of shoegaze
raspberry kush
ceiling fans
blue moon magic
sage
the pull-out method
a trap street in England called Lye Close
it all might be real
if no feeling's final
I'll pick a point to steady myself
call it horizon or
the simulacrum I
hold fast anyway & see for how long
Jack, if you keep me talking
one day, I'll tell you what
I'm really thinking about