After the beautiful boy killed himself I killed myself …
Bruce Smith
Late fall in the villages of Pompey, Preble, Oran, Delphi Falls, …
In bed as the machinery of morning begins, indistinguishable …
I must have left a fingerprint, a molecule of oil, …
Miss Bliss, once I thought I was endless …
Not even the cops who can do anything could do this— …
Late August was a pressure drop, …
An obituary has more news than this day, …
the place of consequence, the station of his embrace. …
Is this the world, Miss Bliss? Stacks of ingots on the docks where my brother works? Work and things on the threshold of raw and radiated. Bananas gassed in shacks to ripen by the forklifts. Ships of foreign port. Ships of car parts and dyes. The beef-stripping business. Things, Miss Bliss, and work. Flavors translated from Costa Rica, volatile oils, seized cargoes, incensed loads, cracked coal. After a week the exposed skin around his wrists was blue, vein color, the color of the world. Labor, and the union of the senses to deliver us from our geography. Everywhere is here. …