the particular melancholy will shift
and vanish               the posture
                will remain

                        your wooden face burning
       and turning away 
               print of you
                                            on my fingers

my iron wedge   drives to the core






                                            Catholic into Protestant
                                  no
                                            punative score-keeping
                        only         codes of productivity
                                accountability
                                                                   boundary
                           of "private space"






                   likeness to a cellblock

                                                 simple satisfying power
                                          of an axe head



                                         you must know father
                                 to kill       father
                                 must be a little bit
                                 the father
                                    every murder
                                    a little bit
                                   a suicide


                 I wanted to write novels                when
          I stopped wanting to
               I was