In the burned house I am eating breakfast.
You understand: there is no house, there is no breakfast,
yet here I am.

The spoon which was melted scrapes against 
the bowl which was melted also.
No one else is around.

Where have they gone to, brother and sister,
mother and father? Off along the shore,
perhaps. Their clothes are still on the hangers,

their dishes piled beside the sink,
which is beside the woodstove
with its grate and sooty kettle,

every detail clear,
tin cup and rippled mirror.
The day is bright and songless,

the lake is blue, the forest watchful.
In the east a bank of cloud 
rises up silently like dark bread.

I can see the swirls in the oilcloth,
I can see the flaws in the glass,
those flares where the sun hits them.

I can’t see my own arms and legs
or know if this is a trap or blessing,
finding myself back here, where everything

in this house has long been over,
kettle and mirror, spoon and bowl,
including my own body,

including the body I had then,
including the body I have now
as I sit at this morning table, alone and happy,

bare child’s feet on the scorched floorboards
(I can almost see)
in my burning clothes, the thin green shorts

and grubby yellow T-shirt
holding my cindery, non-existent,
radiant flesh. Incandescent.

In the Pornhub video two houseless men
Suck each other on a subway bench.
It’s late at night, but not late enough
No one is around. The people are
Outraged, call the men disgusting, 
New York and humans disgusting
While they continue to record.

I have the space inside my body to feel
The two men, their commitment
To pleasure, absent basic comfort:
The one’s face nearly neutral, as though
His friend’s mouth and the sting of existence
Canceled each other out. Almost
Like a mannequin. Just there. 

                       On Hyde Street
Yesterday morning, walking briskly
In no clear direction, I saw a man
On the opposite sidewalk, a motorcycle
Parked at a right angle to his feet.
He put one hand on a handle, the other
On his crotch, and glared above the slow-
Moving traffic at me. The question 
In his face, its own answer. 
                          When I tell you
I don’t know what to do with my life,
I mean I don’t know how to stay inside it. 

Joy, Gary says, is a feeling of profound gratitude—
And before I can ask for that—for having come
How far I have come. I celebrate my friend 
And think at once: we should be grateful then
For surviving a country that makes of survival

A victory and not a right? We talk about
Our boyfriends, syntax, Nella Larsen’s Passing.
Gary leans across the couch to touch my chin.
We were lovers once, briefly. I look at him
Look at me. Try to love yourself, darling, 

He says. You’re going to be here a long time. 

to go to Rome: Live your lives.
We order cocktail shrimp at the hotel bar, 
fries with a parmesan snow. The waiter fills 
our flutes to the brim & we swim 
in the golden liquid & sink into the leather sofa,
the delights so cliché the cliché the delight 
we sing along & avoid eye contact 
with the lounge singer: sha-la-la-la-la 
two brown-eyed girls in love 
dark lipstick on the rim of the glass
& the lounge singer starts Lady in Red 
& we swoon & people around us eat their olives 
from shallow dishes & we order dessert 
to keep the night going, to keep 
the sweetness in our mouths