back and forth and back and forth

goes the tock of the orange, bland, ambassadorial

face of the moon on the grandfather clock.

all autumn long, the chafe and jar of dirty bomb

we have talked ourselves to death.

I swim like a minnow

behind my studio window.

Our end drifts nearer,

the moon lifts,

radiant with terror.

The state

is a diver under a glass bell. ...

A father's no shield

for his child.

We are like a lot of wild

spiders crying together,

but without tears.