or A Few of My Favorite Things,
or Error as Architecture
An oily snow mound in a parking lot. The frame of an old car in a junk heap. The way your lip curls up when you sleep revealing your upper teeth. The artificial green coloring of the frozen spinach that rubs off on my fingers. The eye of the crippled homeless man at the bottom of the escalator in Grand Central Station that rolls back. My judgments. The things she said when angry. The show that was stiffly acted and tastelessly directed. The thoughts I thought when lonely. The words I excised from this poem just now. My tastes. The way she named her experience friendship while I named mine love. The warts I burned off my toes in fifth grade. The way the wedding ended too early and nobody was ready to jump into the river. My desire. The things I turn from. The sudden movements of my mind. The things that turn towards me. The introduction of disorder into the system. The melody without shape or arc. My training. The ugly ass tie my friend wore the other night. The fatness of Americans. The atomic bomb. My discriminations. The proclivity for blood in human relations. The persistence of ignorance. The genocide. The difference between wise distinguishing and naked awareness. The nay-saying mind and the yes-saying spirit. The slave humming her song in a tone of utter despair.
