In the subway station where all is dark
the man singing "We play the circle game"
accompanies himself on the guitar.
He has few teeth in middle age.
The song was hers some fifteen years ago.
This might be she if allowed
to go round and round.
Thank God she went so young and innocent
with all her teeth, No lover ditched her
and made her weep. Only the mortician
painted her nails, the creep.
That death was rape enough
intruding on the perfect body.
I throw the man a dollar
well worth the tune
she might be singing now.
STEPHEN ACKERMAN
Insomnia Asylum
The Mojo gangs roamed the beer factories.
Surly, mean, mysteriously solemn,
Like Renoir's
The Southerner,
Innocently solemn, like two young boys
Becoming blood brothers.
In the insomnia asylum, daft rhetoric,
Daft conduct shaped divorce, swept me
Off the deck of a dream of sexual pleasure,
The one she imagined for herself
With you and confided in you
And practiced with you.
The Mojo gangs roamed the beer factories.
They roamed among the vats of malt. Pleasure
Promised, deferred, denied, pleasure
Had. Dear Dad, good-bye. "Like
A summer with a thousand Julys."
I saw the gangs, heard the beer hall songs.
The tyranny of the beer hall
Songs soaked your love,
