I put up these broken things as decorations br For relatives I haven’t seen before just flown in: br These are mute hyperboles on a television nobody br Is watching, but I just bought it, and I love it: br These are my sad persuasions to the middle-class br Saints, asking them to shake off their various staples br Of pietas and stigmata and come in! come in! br Because they are the very ones I’ve been looking for, br And I have a mermaid captured in the bathtub br I‘ve been happily torturing to get a name for, br And we can talk and have sex br And hors d'oeuvres and look out into the back br Yard where the dogs are burying their bones as the br Foreground of a terrific pastel train wreck. We ask each other br About the weather to stave off salesmen, and the guilt br Of our knowledge that is everyman’s inheritance, br and our impotence in br Comparison to each suave dancer out on the floor; but with all this br Business, and the successful initiation of foreplay and br Ennui, I find myself turning the world into a tank of br Glass, farmers gossiping outside the four walls that we wear. br Like a ship turning undecided at sea, and then the entire house is a giant br Lung of the whale which has swallowed my imagination br For so long, and now that it is mine I can sit back and br Say I am published, but it isn’t very good. When the knock br Comes to the door, only the curious persuasion of my dinner br Guests will cause me to answer it; but instead I will leave br The uninvited guess to them, and head up stairs to my more br Saturated bed: caressing each of her lulls, her lips my carnal prayers br Answered, br Asking for nothing more.