Ars Poetica with Passing Hailstorm

The ceiling is a woman buried upside down.
Let me start again—in Maywood, California there’s a library
that’s important to me. Its many ceiling lights: indifferent 
glass breasts pointing down at their readers. Each nipple 

a gathering of dead moths. At the hospital, I hear 
a nurse call cancer the big casino
as in the house always wins. A house is a many-sided die
always rolling on its spine. I spent 
my teenage years watching a good mother lose

her breasts, her hair. She screamed in the shower. She screamed
in the mirror. Each drain wreathed
with death’s jet-black wig. There was no Sesame Street episode
for this lesson: the first time you see a man’s hand

up Cookie Monster’s ass, your childhood dies a little. Every day 
I wait under passing clouds, feverish and eager
to see a flash of skin. Maybe a wrist, something hairy and flesh-colored
to point my pitchfork at. After that last hailstorm

the front yard looked like a fancy party
where the guests lost all their pearls.
Watch me busy myself with finishing line, 
string each bead of ice together. Let me start again—

this is a gift quickly melting in my hands.