23

some things i learned from anton pavlovich

1

We descry on a drumlin

a figure in outline

who's tendriling earbuds

like crazy.

The skyline

against her

the color of iPod commercials.

And

lo

from

some

speakers

embedded

in

mold

a

man

shrieks

it

"Are You Gon Na Be My Girl?!"

2

'But best of all I'd like to live right here'

he said and pointered out the upper left

indention of convection currents' trails.

'The biggest vacuum cleaner there could be.

You see it's here, the scientists report--

the phatic past phantasmagoria,

the liver, magma, flash obsidion.'

I sat in Moscow, insofar as I

could find it, warming bones and marrow fat

within his upper left and molten bend--

a Soviet radiator drying socks--

and let the whole collection ooze and pour

about my head, corn syrup lava caught

throughout my hair before I arch my neck,

allow the gak to probe my back and send

eruptions of warm shivers to my limbs.

At last the past phantasmagoria:

in sum no more than a distraction's scab.