I take the dusty yearbook off the shelf
and scan the fledgling, mostly white, male faces:
a foreign country, but the aging self

 I tried, and each attempt was a fiasco. 
I yearned, but every love of mine was wrong. 
I needed, and the shame was overwhelming. 

The Museum of Modern Art isn’t hungry
Each wall is perfection
Leger says hello to Picasso

Today I wished without mercy
in the bloodless nations of the mind
that a city had gone down with you

A platter of walnuts, I think. 
Shanghai and the banquet is festive. 
Strong Chinese brandy and “Campi!” 

He gave me a spruce lap desk
for writing in bed that Christmas.
It was rubbed into fragrance with oil of almond

With a great scuffle,
the meeting adjourned.
Calm turned to storm.

She sweated, sweated and swore.
She predicted a total eclipse
as if it were replenishing shade.

Loving that man was a way of hating God:
useless, and no sense of privacy.
The fates fell, like cats tumbling

Reading? Morning.
Reading morning and a sky like the olive.
Reading the morning in sandals sifting through soot.