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O that I could taste it beneath the gall and vinegar! “Deux gaules,” in the secret language of resistance, whispered the fisher of men. He spoke so slowly I understood his French. When Mimi bore her litter of kittens, he drowned them in a bucket. Kittens wrestle at my feet, soft and sharp, like alternating currents. Cardboard on concrete makes a Chinatown bed. Her grandparents dealt in vegetables and porno. What to do with all those reels? Why am I surprised at their white hair? We're told too many penalties will render the laws void, so go easy on those who live in tents by the canal. The homeless are pure cost, lines heavy with gravity. One man sweeps the sidewalk beside his tent; I am leaving a Thai restaurant, where I talked to the author of “The Bodhissatvas of Thrown Away Things.” Mother and aunty carry a pole laden with old clothes and a bunch of bananas. My student asked me what I think “the the” means. A politics of person not idea, of love without absorption, of the simple word. Good night, men; good night, kittens.

--24 April 2015