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       This e-book edition was created through a special grant provided by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. Copper Canyon Press would like to thank Constellation Digital Services for their partnership in making this e-book possible.

       For my boys and for Miranda

      Contents

        Title Page

        Note to the Reader

I DON’T HAVE A PILL FOR THAT

      It scares me to watch

      a woman hobble along

      the sidewalk, hunched adagio

      leaning on—

      there’s so much fear

      I could draw you a diagram

      of the great reduction

      all of us will soon

      be way-back-when.

      The wedding is over.

      Summer is over.

      Life please explain.

      This book is nearly halfway read.

      I don’t have a pill for that,

      the doctor said.

THE WEDDING PARTY

      *

      Well look, the wedding guests are here again.

      Why not just send a card?

      Snapshot. Snapshot. Smile and kiss.

      But this bride has such a red face!

      Let her scramble past pardon en route to the loo.

      Evacuate the taffeta dire and paunchy.

      The groom is erect.

      The groom downed three pints

      and stole from the caterer.

      He would never be no grown-up.

      This part we’ll remember. Dull and easy.

      Before the spawning and apathy.

      Before the dementia nurse

      and waiting for mama to die.

      Silverware. Cloth napkins. Carafes. Gather round.

      Sit pious and clench yourself.

      What’s within should be held in.

      Choke it down. Medicine for the long haul.

      No more wildness is why

      I chose no more wildness.

      Now scurry ho, before someone else

      goes down on the bride.

      Isn’t that her in the distance, up the pole?

      *

      By pineapple, by pamplemousse,

      we find ourselves

      back at the table armed with forks

      and particular ideas about what to drink.

      Go on, order what you want.

      Turn up the music, you.

      Lucinda, you have a great voice.

      You have a lovelygone face

      and teeth. O gums! Pink and alkaline.

      We live in the city with crowds of fallen.

      Soon I am dead and soon you.

      We’ll all be dead together! Anne said.

      *

      Marie, you are not unclean.

      You are rose-oiled and shiny

      and ensconced in the corner

      with the witty anesthesiologist,

      inhaling ladysmoke

      at the café.

      It’s a pleasure

      just to watch you scratch the crud

      off your lotto ticket tonight.

      Then in comes Jackson, looking like

      he’s left his wife. And again Larry

      is extending his feelers toward Clarice.

      Larry, what gives?

      You’ll soon lose interest.

      Eh, Mr Candlelight?

      I want to give you

      a good close reading.

      Come this way.

      *

      Oh, skin! What a cloth to live in.

      We are not at the end of things.

      He’s tuxedoed and I’m in a cocktail dress.

      How

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