4325 Baltimore Avenue ('04)


Jason cooking flounder on a filthy range,
   picked up at 40th & Walnut where Penn students
mingled w/ artists, Chomsky-ites, bums, mothers,
   where French bread for two bucks we’d carry
around for walks home down rustic mansion’d
    streets, fish-waft filling lovably threadbare
kitchen laden w/ mustard & crumbs— gone—

Mary’s Acme pesto pasta, Olive-oil Goddess
   she’d make a pot on pot in a pot & we’d
have a bowl from the pot watching hot
   French-flicks in the vivid living room, gone—
paintings, Mary’s evocations Dionysus & Apollo,
   Jason post-Dali post-structuralist Dada &
Derrida derived violences, submitted to smitten
    PAFA judges winking secretly at Jason’s tight
ass, Mary’s too, they screwed, we screwed, we
   all were screwing each other secretly, tenderly,
flecked w/ little chips from falling ceiling, gone—

parties on green-awning’d porch, weed midnights;
   butt-smoke, frost-breath, gun-stocked West Philly
cops stop to shock us w/ looks, putting no
   cell-bar cramps on druggy St. Steven, gone—
moments later I’d drag Mary into her wood-
   floored torrid bedroom & open-door fuck
her, hoping Josh & Kevin might spy
   us, one time on whiskey Mary’s diaphragm
got stuck inside her, I felt it, fucking her,
   we laughed, Mary’s hair then was
long down to her ass, raucous, gone—

Grace, Jason’s grace, a minx of jinxing, she from
   rich Connecticut knows Salinger reads my poems
at parties makes snot comments, silver-belted,
   out on the back porch in October wind we stood,
Grace, raven tresses Heaven-breasts innocent
   sex, girlfriend who had Jason by the face, ass,

I made scathing Spears comment everyone
   hissed, instead we put on Stones Kinks Elliott
Smith, Josh who played music, gone, now w/ Sara,
   jailbait date stealing cars & kisses, back-seat
caresses blonde tresses sun-dresses, trouble-
   starting, Kevin’s dread on my head, gone—

Kevin dumb chimp we called him big beast of
   a man writing bad songs doing Ritalin lines
raging through nights fucking Diana, gone,
   moans that broke us up, Oh Kevin Oh Kevin,
waitress of the hunt, Diana, blank stare, no cares
   or qualms taking alms from everyone, doing
laundry, Diana & me in lust discreetly, doors
   open, Bohemian dream-time—

apogee— everyone hot— everyone fucking, painting
   making music, boozing, drugging, sucking, humping,
leaning on nothing but the night’s promise, always
  more night, another line, another ride, time
to find out food, hues of mood, clues of color, love
  shape, O Lord we were the crux of ourselves,
our nexus the nexus, our moment the moment, all
  now reduced to ash, nothing but a shut window,
a fiery memory of an open one…