I sleep a lot and read St. Thomas Aquinas

Or The Death of God (that’s a Protestant book).

To the right the bay as if molten tin,

Beyond the bay, city, beyond the city, ocean,

Beyond the ocean, ocean, till Japan.

To the left dry hills with white grass,

Beyond the hills an irrigated valley where rice is grown,

Beyond the valley, mountains and Ponderosa pines,

Beyond the mountains, desert and sheep.

When I couldn’t do without alcohol, I drove myself on alcohol,

When I couldn’t do without cigarettes and coffee, I drove myself

On cigarettes and coffee.

I was courageous. Industrious. Nearly a model of virtue.

But that is good for nothing.

I feel a pain.

not here. Even I don’t know.

many islands and continents,

words, bazaars, wooden flutes,

Or too much drinking to the mirror, without beauty,

Though one was to be a kind of archangel

Or a Saint George, over there, on St. George Street.

Please, Doctor,

Not here. No,

Maybe it’s too

Unpronounced

Please, Medicine Man, I feel a pain.

I always believed in spells and incantations.

Sure, women have only one, Catholic, soul,

But we have two. When you start to dance

You visit remote pueblos in your sleep

And even lands you have never seen.

Put on, I beg you, charms made of feathers,

Now it’s time to help one of your own.

I have read many books but I don’t believe them.

When it hurts we return to the banks of certain rivers.

I remember those crosses with chiseled suns and moons

And wizards, how they worked during an outbreak of typhus.

Send your second soul beyond the mountains, beyond time.

Tell me what you saw, I will wait.