From the Fishouse

The phone is never for me except for when it is
and so most days I ignore its digital trill
before someone apologizes to the air
for dropping my blood on the floor,
could I please entrust one more vial
to their care. Or it’s the synthetic coo
of a woman I almost believe
could consolidate my vertiginous debt
and more, dragging the vacuum
of my heart across the twin Alps of the fiscal
and the erotic. But her voice ends
and standing here in the hall
I am amazed and frozen
by the deep drift of longing sweeping higher
than I was aware. Until this
moment, I had bought many things
I had no need of: the pogo-stick
rusting mercifully somewhere cool and dark,
its wheezing ascent grounded;
the ouija board that never whispered at all
of the distant dead; the iguana
whose tail grew black and necrotic
and hardly noticed the amputation
with a steak knife made of space-age materials.
And now I want whatever it is
she was hired to make me want—
I will spend more than I have
so that she will be programmed to return
to the Capistrano of my ears
like a helpless bird. I will burn
dollar bills because it’s easier than pennies.
I will fall like Frank Bland fell,
unlucky in name and life,
into a vat of paint stripper
and fight for his life with mine
as we burn away. To the world,
I will open my wallet like a cadaver is opened
and forgive what I’m owed.