back inside the surveillance van, the recording gets garbled

I too am sick of the body.
I too am sick of being a body,
am sick of being sick about my body

her grandfather’s ranch on the edge of the Rio Grande soaking in cedar smoke

Why there is still all this space inside me, I don’t know

You did everything right. You strung
the poles, bought the bait and made it
by sunup to fish the bank facing the fork

One morning in a city where my body felt held, I felt like I was sitting across the breakfast table from the world

His hand
is on his chest. You tell him his heart is gone,
donated with his hammer and shovels.

I still believe the dead don’t miss
people the way the living do

Later, bruises were buckshot
stars.

I think maybe I really touched God once, a place
on his thigh where the hair grew backward, like a misgiving

Sometimes passion is a padded room

I told myself
that I was done

the illusionist
comforted us with stagecraft
rabbits and mirrors

A beveled wooden music box with golden inlay called to me from a clear plastic bin, so I got on my knees and took it out

The angels are carved
directly in the walls, suffocated by brass.
Everything is a different kind of gold