Like your ex-Mormon roommate, here. Your visual mind, Against your will, probably thinks about your squirm That a few moments ago squirmed you of your juice, Wiggled her skirt back on, resurfaced the lip-spit Crackup in her concrete of makeup, and wordless, Walked like a princess out the door. As the last of the ecstatic vibrations tides you in the rear You arise from the raft of the mattress. Then you cover up your nakedness, And move to the light of the living room. And then I actually see you, Don, in the hour that you had told Me to step back in. You are bending over the end-table stained In the blood of wine. Sunlight, stripped silver from the grey Clouds, pours through the window to the table. To your right a nine of swords card of a man pierced in the Back gleams as it walls the card of your future lovers., And the redness of Doctrines and Covenants to the far left of That table also looks pure in the light. You do not see me. Your mind is racked in screwing the pack For an answer. You turn another Tarot Card In the order your destiny is to be read. Your sad eyes look up And your languid voice says that you are late For your meeting with the local Bishop... A meeting to straighten up your fucking life. I laugh! In bitterness that shakes my intestines, I laugh! Another hillbilly man Has lifted his head above the rest--a foot up from the jug-- And has blown his breath into the air Which 'naps another young and fragmented one To the call of being holy. But before you arise You turn the gleaming card of number four-- Your eyes in a more motionless trance than before. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - New England Washing (Mental Account, Some day of Gorbechev, 1987)