All Day, Just for a Minute

Without care, without help, without help. Without longing or shoes. Dig what you don't have in. Ah God what wonderful

luck. I love you. Does that help?

Go away. Long without water, trapped between roads. On that very bridge in San Francisco we were crushed in earliest memory. And there your lamp caught fire by a Greek sound of misery.

Give it up. Does it nourish? Does it help? Help.

Chapter Three. Here is where the lovers part, unable to make sense. Try try don't get mad. Circle the TV set and count to four. Hope for hope to rinse us clear. I love you. Good luck. Help.

(Inside the bridges, inside a car, workers have to saw through a woman, dead two days, to get to the child.)

Chapter One. A name or a house. A car or a wound.

:over by the console a miserable marriage of the fifties tries to be what some random god said be be. Drunk, philandering, heart disease; gossipy alienated hates kids forgot what it feels like to feel. You know that story. Are we still writing the same chapter? Are we still in the same edition?

1957. Men with narrow ties and shaved heads all march off to work. Computer's the newest thing. Look, Dad. Feel

the green letters cross this screen then cross again, scratch scratch. I rubbed your feet when you were dying. You were out of your mind. I can't begin to get out.

Rockets to the moon, wonder bread, Fathers as heads

of the country: simple relief when bridges fall down. Come on, now, admit it. Remember that fellow trapped between two bridges, four whole days? Everyone looking for someone, anyone, at least one poor schmuck in the rubble alive. Get him out get him out hello in there anyone anyone who.

Down in the cracks a long and unforgettable ragtime jazz or otherwise swampy and heart-felt, heat-felt music began. Oh love. Oh you

life delight: light rising easy, bit of barely cool breeze. Breathe. You're alive. They're pulling you out. Four days like like like like

jackhammering the door down where images start out of flames, the kind that just come and come. Oh humanity your bells your trumpets blessed father my light.

Monday through Wednesday. Called but got a busy signal. Called but got a dial tone. Something's wrong. Called but they said you were buried alive. Were you leaving town or trying to get back? Were you thinking about never mind.

Called but got the sound of coins, clattering to the floor. Called sweet simple sickening lust. Gimme. Gotcha. Heresa treat. Take it outside, now; don't spill.

New Year's Eve. Remember? You remember. You struck the match because you knew you weren't supposed to. That's what learning is. Suck the world up you rascally boozer. But I'm not drunk. That's the amazing thing, amazing thing is I can hear you and I'm not even drunk. Thank you. I'm listening in gulps.

All Day, Just for a Minute, I feel the mannekin's terrible relief, looking back at last at those who stare. I think about the hot days of summer when nothing was ever so hot. Fruit, as they say, dripping. The wind a secret I cannot keep. Say anything we're connected and I want to be connected. Fruit falls when it damn well wants.