BILLS OF MORTALITY

I.
Cadiz due east... cucumber esters and mustards.

Actually, there were large bronze esters,

 

virtual vinegars in the skin
of certain rodents. And the fleas avoided them.
During plague in Holland
whole sleeping costumes were made of these rats:

the fat diamond cutter and his wife,
snoring on their bellies, a red candle
guttering beyond them, dream of the dead aunt

who woke to a plague warden in the early morning
nailing shut her doors.
Posting the writ of quarantine after finding the aunt's
husband in the night rounds- delinquent, cobbled,
his nightshirt torn to the navel
and tulips blooming in his armpits.

The Chinese symbol for discord is two Jesuits
burning in the same wood.
The Pope desired spices, sweaty tea of cumin
and the bolting silk Rome
romanizes Rome.
The yellow charcoal scars the chapel door.

Exeunt. Exeunt. Gobble, gobble.
No more.

II.
the document states that my little brother was
dying of a.i.d.s.
we went to his rustic cabin,
with the obese lilacs, in pennsylvania- at that green lake
with the loons & voodoo so, to be safe,
before i sat on his toilet seat
i wrapped my johnson twice in toilet paper
& adhesive tape- so dig, we're riding that trombone
of an old ford to town & john's senile mother
has stuffed my burlesque hat with twenty
dollar bills & hard candy- it sitting in my lap
& i start screaming that ants are everywhere
& the vehicle comes to a halt, bo' diddly on the radio,
while i'm stripping in the headlights, down
to that ragged wasp's nest,

john & andy sweeping red ants like asian horsemen
off my dancing ass, my brother's head resting on the wheel-
he laughs, he cries & is seized while saying that
this is his last triumph. plague & the country life.
that's all that i can remember.