Status Updates From Collected Poems

Man. "Suite for Emily" was a RIDE. I am seriously sitting here stunned. This is gorgeous work.

"How exactly pinned-to-the-wall / love was in that harsh economy, the world, the world, the world."

"making love was a way of saying yes, / I am here, these are my borders, hold me down / a little while. Make me real to myself."

"Of all that group I'd meet when I was young... / I can't recall what we spoke of—it meant so much."

"They'd kept forgetting their lines, passing between takes / a silver flask of vodka, washing down / barbiturates until finally the shooting stopped / and that's why the scene's so lost."

"Monroe shimmies, the barroom scene, hair musical, those / naked humid eyes."

"narrow streets fill with the violet steam / of after-midnight, the pigeons' soft venereal / cooing that speaks of want like this, that deep / original loneliness. There are heartless places / in every city you've lived."

"Close your eyes and then the night turns to coal / seamed with diamonds."

"tulips shriveling petals to show black hearts..."

"The camera angle's high and dizzy: / like a funneling throat..."

"and a girl walks trailing / from her shoulders a glitter wrap so / the shadow pimps go hey princess, / why you so sad tonight."

"with shadow cupped in palms before applause."

"Pages waiting for their ink, for / everything damned, for everything human & lovely."

"the winds half- / forgetful lifting the rotten lace on the dress / made for a sister who would never wear it, / who left the world naked, bald."

"It didn't mean that much to me, seventeen, / my practiced sangfroid / chilling the terror, that long drop / inside, the way you collapse to fall in flames."

"Like the Russian cellist broke in Berlin, / the '20s, who'd sleep in the opera house, who / one delirious night played, naked, his instrument / into the shadows, the banked silent seats / & rat galleries. And forgot the cold. / That would be pretty wouldn't it?"

"Or once, there was a time, / the opening a fairy tale, simple, sinister."

"Swallow the moon like a coin"

"If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn."

"That / poured-on dress / I lived days / and night inside"

"... this world burning ruthless, crucial & exacting."

"Small hand held against the flood / of everything to come, the savage drifting years. / I'm a lucky bitch."

"I only wished then / the cancellation of that hungering that turns us / toward the mortal arms of lovers or highways / or whatever form of forgetfulness we choose."