A visit with Aunt Ruby at the Red Roof Inn, 
            planting cotton, strumming a banjo 
in Sergeant Zygote’s ragtime band, 
            clogging Molly, Kitty’s nosebleed, 
medium rare, red thread in the sewing machine, 
            Cousin Claudia’s barbecue, Moses’ parting, 
Dracula’s teabag, wound of Eve, up on blocks, 
            the Cardinal’s tomato boat, taking Carrie 
to the prom, time to reboot, high time for high tide 
            tide Tide tide Tide tide Tide. 

He says, What’s that pink thing behind the toilet?  
            Trash. What’s it for? Ladies.

A metaphysics of absorption: what comes 
            between the drop and the diffusion, 
the missed made manifest, potential blue.
            What if the one full moon had never 
ripened, the one error never slipped,
            traveled its telescopic distance, 

caught hold, caught in her? Become him.  
            Would she be free? He picks up 
and scrutinizes the ribbings, fitted tubes,
            perforated meshes, adhesive tabs, 
cardboard cylinders, loosened strings, 
            cotton batting full of white beads 
of diaper gel. The biology book said

            the egg was the size of a period 
on a page. Finitude and pause. A point 
            of dried ink, a fixed mark to curtail 
the undulant energies of pitch and syntax,
            dropped into the ocean of herself.