Lines Written During the Monarch Migration

          An outrageous fantasia of butterflies is sawing through the city

on the orange buzzsaws of its wings. It’s the most fabulous

thing I’ve ever seen, but all I can think about is the woman

          I wish would drag me down to the apricot cellar & kick

          my ass in the dark. Is there even such thing as an apricot

cellar? Do I even have an ass? Butterflies are like that: little

thoughts bouncing around & then becoming a tunnel

          to wander through that falls apart in shards of color and

          wow it’s already 5:30 PM on tax day & all my money has turned

to locusts. What asshole decided I should care for a body using

only the body I’m supposed to care for? What about mistakes?

          Where shall I make my ruin? Imagine Chagall with only one

          canvas but enough paint for eighty-five years. That’s a boatload

of goats & violins. Permit me to explain: I want the woman

to kick herself out of me, to make room for butterflies & prayer.

          & here’s the thing about prayer: it’s an intimate grappling with

          empty air. & Jacob was both Jacob & the angel. & confusion

is one of the senses—I can’t stress that enough. Divesting

the self of desire is impossible because the self is desire—

          to continue selfing, continue burrowing into bewilderment

          like a kaleidoscope until you’ve learned nothing but how little

beauty can finally teach you. Sometimes the only thing

you can smell is the inside of your nose. The butterflies

          are gone & I never danced within them. I was too sad.

          If you put apricots in a cellar—surprise—you have an apricot

cellar. If you beg a woman to come, she won’t. I’m a saint

unblessed, a bell that won’t ring. O, it’s spring, & my

          life is a mess—no, it’s life, & my mess is a spring.