98° not the heat but
mildew on Shakespeare’s spine
syringes in the surf

She’s begun a new piece
Terrarium Three
mosses, bromeliads,
grasses, tendrils
rich moist humus
dark from the boneyard
and her little sculptures
colors jewels thighs
antagonists lovers games
little man little woman

Found her sobbing 
on the sofa
“Cynthia,” I said
my arms stuck to my sides,
“Mahler makes me cry too”
            
Each hair like a spring
her t-shirt sodden, foul as
my back, barefoot
on her Via Dolorosa
crucified for that Kleinkunst
petty dirtcraft
she never explains

Radon in our cellar
nature’s own good
granite exudes into
boiler’s catacomb
it seeps, leaches, condenses
sounds like a villain
Flash Gordon would’ve punched

“No,” she said not
looking up even from
the phantom Kindertoten
in her lap, “if 
he’d died an infant
this would’ve died with
him, nobody’d know”

Vinegary rain scours the lakes
clean as Mr. Coffee
skeletalizes woods
O Westron Wind
wilt wilt

“1 out of 4 marriages
he’s over 10 years older;
second marriages”
“I won’t discard you”
I promised twice “won’t”
            
91° at 9 p.m.  God.
The machine needs freon
freon eats ozone
we’re breathing ozone
stay inside if
you’re young or old
used to be or want

Test tubes thick with
red samples for AIDS
with seaweed slick
and hepatitis ABC
slop against inner tubes
and kiddies’ knees

“So,” I joked, “in 20
years there’ll be all
these rich widows, 40,
who’ve spent every day
working out; they’ll marry
teenagers.  Sociology.”
“And long division,” she snapped.

The glass half-fogged
“Look,” I said, “there’re
ants, live ants, ladybugs.”
“Yes,” she said, “of course.”
                                                
In bed she winces
she’s angry at some
slight slight
We touch as waves wharves
I hate the weather aloud
my job has cancer, I say,
“If you don’t like it
why don’t you quit?”

Monoxide drips like syrup
the dome of bad air settles
like a lethal basilica
hammered with divine forefinger

Six pesticides glaze
Thompson’s red seedless,
oil-based, insoluble

In the car I’m braised
like fatty shortribs
marriage is guerrilla war
infiltration negotiation ambush 
truce. 1 out of 4.
                                    
Found her drinking
looking at it done,
“It’s a little world,”
she said. “Nothing escapes.”