American Sonnet 

In purple thong a man interrupts your bathing 

In the Contoocook River you contemplate killing him and

Drive West when you do, toward your adoration of spoons. 

As subject and object of movie posters, you have carried  

This opportunistic blade and hatred is a kind of 

Celebrity. Consider this silence—no sirens, no

Pursuing squadrons, highway bisecting red desert—and you

Again grow hungry, watch the sign posts fall away

One by one, like Salome’s veils. Or was it Jezebel? You

See lepidopterists on a hill in Colorado, their 

Mesh mouths regurgitate fragile anatomies, affix

Postures with pins; you, altar boy, tie a knot at your throat, 

Devout for an hour and the rest of the week: nothing. You

Say you don’t want it but secretly you want it very much.