Recycled Sonnet #1 for Lucia Berlin

Tonight the lecture on love + love questions
I’m blue fr. goodness besides
& I cry at hotels & a square
-bodied Dodge—even the sofa

gets defensive abt. housewk.
I transcribe the memory on Keats
& mama-loss to go on pause
w/you, on mute at locomotive cry,

get all fish-faced & emo at the reunions,
heart-squinting at sad cryin’ songs.
On tape we just hold us there
(dishwashing the firmament)

w/Lucile all betwixt & b/w us
calling you a Berlin-er

Recycled Sonnet #2 for Lucia Berlin

& tomorrow Alcestis: ‘a little show
b/w the ears’—hold off a sec lil’ sorrow
The classroom’s name-deep w/stupid poetry
& washed ashore of matted love

: the pasture spring, American Gary,
you been in my lines, both over
-dressed, I mean, not lost
but gussied up, really.

I remember you even died fancy
& all abt. that oily murmur
Nothing less than highbrow love
we brided Christ for, shit like

how we make a mess of everything
at the laundromat next morning
(& how we cleaned it up)