All night long we dreamt

of castles, awoke

to sweat and yellow

paragons in

the soles of our shoes

the candles had burnt

and the cake was dry

and some kid had puked

in the corner–

it was a day

it was a happy

happy birthday

A tiger’s eye

in my pocket,

smooth to touch

Guinnessy-dark

a man named Mister Bill,

owner and bestower of

the tiger’s eye, had small

intense eyes, bald, beard

of a sage, mystic

misty days, then,

I recall, when another

man—a Russian—

taught me karate; got

drunk with my father;

clogged the toilet—

big Slavic pile

Mama put up with this

for only so long—

hid the tiger’s eye,

smiled when they left

went back to bed

They stalked down

to downtown,

bathless and

grinning,

heavy with

ideas

in heavy dusk—

their dogs were

hungrier

than they were

A death panged lightly on singed lungs, a tap of high keys in a minor chord, all structure burned away like fall leaves in front of stateroute trailerhomes, a sweet fragrance seeping between all the sour dying, and when the dying was done the kids swept up the ashes and puffed their pipes.  The ashes tasted worse than the other stuff, but the ashes were free and burned longer, harder, spikier—thus the singe propagated future pangs.