Changed my mind
     Missed the point
left the kitchen and its ragù for the moon
     the spot on the lungs I thought was the end of a wire
the Sea of Nectar, the Sea of Fertility. Left the line
     to a telephone ringing in a dream
and its fucking clarity for the lake effect
     calling me home. You were in the dream
clarity, like truth, is Mussolini. I loved
     your black hair using all the light
the uniforms, the horses in harness, trains on time, belief
     I thought the mother death was drugstore
in place of reckoning, feeling. Changed my mind about
     martyrdom, numbskull emotional self-help
drinking the cyanide, shooting the Mexican tar heroin
     from glossy magazines spindled in offices
into my arm—just a taste—changed arms
     of oncology and MS in social work
wrapped in surgical tubing like phylacteries, a prayer
     when I asked my mother where she was
for a vein, for a killed god. Changed wills
     on the scale of the green to red Pain Chart
changed number, changed rhythm, changed brain
     that hung on the wall of the office of the Pain Clinic
from fight and flight to love in the time of contingency
     I thought she’d point me to
Changed when I held you, changed saturations, changed hues
     amber or buttercup or at worst primrose
I grew a limb, like a starfish, I grew a wound
     but pointed to the scalding red end
I could not change the despoiling
     I became the prodigal in green
world, the deal we had with it to be gorgeous
     she became the Time Marine, Dean of Morphine
damaged, repeated. Changed case and font, changed what I wanted
     red queen of our orphancy changing all we knew of dream
changed Texas to Paris, changed fear to pear, changed all the menace
     into body, and all we knew of body
into this: I adore you and can’t live
     milked of god and goodbye
without you