Along the river a sea bass
    dying
on shallow sand,
    the birds in the morning
silent by 9 am,
     woman power stamped
in the bodies of dancers,
    the cold bloody night of fleas
and the beam splitting the rock,
    the child beestung
chasing a squirrel, the hair
and the polar icecap and the angelfood cake,
    the rat
the scream
    the surf
the newspaper,
and the woman who seizes a dribble of resigned semen
composes a child,
    somewhere an end to the empty din
must be possible

    under the earth it says an angel
     under the angel a ruby mountain
     under the mountain a bull
     under the bull an immense fish
     into whose nostrils all the seas
     fit like a mustard seed in the sdesert
     under the fish water
     under the water darkness
     beyond which all men’s knowledge is useless

there must be time and pleasure
to cook a meal,
choose a vegetable,
anything at all
besides silence and banter.