There, diurnal and punctual, she crossed That small area of grass, fountains, and cement Which were generally buffeted more fully by sun and adjacent Sounds, moving the park more than Bush and Dukakis' Presence. "WALK" was always lit when la chica Approached the street, carrying her library books. When would she, artificial and pneumatic, Who like Houston's miniature stop-lights While going to work, veer my movements To slide off a plane ticket and be led Through and from burning Amazons And green-house climactic changes-- Through wasted ozone and my own depleted life-- The breath of her mouth my only nourishment. Masking tape From hurricane threats Remains at the edges of windowpanes; Palm trees, below, are hybrid to cement; Thuc Nguyen's business report figures Blend and bury themselves as distant sounds; The staff meeting and this cigarette industry are gone. Slid off a plane ticket caught in life's winds Restless No friends for real All wanting something from me The outside world has nothing Except life-ending amusements of Sex to escape void The dead have some solidity of truth About what happens after life Even if they are not aware of it, And the rest breathe in fables Everything is surely unchanged in Springfield, Mo., where I was raised, But none of it is mine Nothing is ours--humanity drifts along And intersects briefly in alliances My friends Are co-workers whom I must expire My life with civilly As we light cigarettes And bitch of no new raises When would she pull on my arm Tugging me thoroughly into breaking glass Of the 12th floor conference room To fall, putting me out violently, When I can no longer dream ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - Mid-West Hymn of Aten Aten, where it is throned on the television beneath the window, Sees above and below and says nothing: It enjoys the woman secretary and the road constructor Who from opposite shifts of the sun Come to it, the cat; Follow the roaming in its mansion; Pensively laugh as it clings to hundred dollar drapes; Feed it holiday popcorn on the throne; And close the drapes that the cat, Aten Had opened by its tugging, And will open again: Opening below Where the woman, statue of her liberty Wedged in a mud layered hill of snow Ankle-thrusts The tilt of her body after a moment of standing still: Face looking in the trash receptacle that her flabby Breasts rest on the rim of and point toward; head bowed To the tin; And mind distinguishing between good and Bad trash. Her hands raise from the snow-blended