The blonde unlocks
her daddy’s Firebird,
blood-red as a tropical fish.

The sun drills a hole between my shoulder blades
I am ashamed that I want self-degrading things
I burn for no reason like a lantern in daylight

The way I had it figured as a kid,
This Mercury would be a relic now
Mounted in some museum, on display

When, in the evening, I explore the succulent shadows
with their blue veins and black chrysanthemums,
their thorny places,

on a certain December day in 1981
the front page of The Sydney Tribune said that
Mrs. Smith had found a snake in her garden

“I'm looking forward to my death,” she said.
I sat upright. I watched her blond hair sway,
this college girl who taught our Sunday School.

Beginning as usual in the dark
well of an expensive late-night taxi,
you recall this scene; your father rushes

It’s the broken phrases, the fury inside him.
Squiggling alto saxophone playing out rickets
And jaundice, a mother who tried to kill him

I am looking at a movie
In which the monster is
Never seen—so far.

Then two juncoes trapped in the house this morning.
  The house like a head with nothing inside.
The voice says: come in.