“Dressed to die ... ”

—Dylan Thomas

Sister once of weeds & a dark water that held still



In ditches reflecting the odd,



Abstaining clouds that passed, & kept



Their own counsel, we



Were different, we kept our own counsel.



Outside the tool shed in the noon heat, while our father



Ground some piece of metal



That would finally fit, with grease & an hour of pushing,



The needs of the mysterious Ford tractor,



We argued out, in adolescence,



Whole systems of mathematics, ethics,



And finally agreed that altruism,



Whose long vowel sounded like the pigeons,



Roosting stupidly & about to be shot



In the barn, was impossible



If one was born a Catholic. The Swedish



Lutherans, whom the nuns called



“Statue smashers,” the Japanese on



Neighboring farms, were, we guessed,



A little better off ....



When I was twelve, I used to stare at weeds



Along the road, at the way they kept trembling



Long after a car had passed;



Or at gnats in families hovering over



Some rotting peaches, & wonder why it was



I had been born a human.



Why not a weed, or a gnat?



Why not a horse, or a spider? And why an American?



I did not think that anything could choose me



To be a Larry Levis before there even was



A Larry Levis. It was strange, but not strange enough



To warrant some design.



On the outside,



The barn, with flaking paint, was still off-white.



Inside, it was always dark, all the way up



To the rafters where the pigeons moaned,



I later thought, as if in sexual complaint,



Or sexual abandon; I never found out which.



When I walked in with a 12-gauge & started shooting,



They fell, like gray fruit, at my feet—



Fat, thumping things that grew quieter



When their eyelids, a softer gray, closed,



Part of the way, at least,



And their friends or lovers flew out a kind of skylight



Cut for loading hay.



I don’t know, exactly, what happened then.



Except my sister moved to Switzerland.



My brother got a job



With Colgate-Palmolive.



He was selling soap in Lodi, California.



Later, in his car, & dressed



To die, or live again, forever,



I drove to my own, first wedding.



I smelled the stale boutonniere in my lapel,



A deceased young flower.



I wondered how my brother’s Buick



Could go so fast, &,



Still questioning, or catching, a last time,



An old chill from childhood,



I thought: why me, why her, & knew it wouldn’t last.





