We’re like the ships of Ulysses, always being blown off course. Hurry up and undress, before the blood dies in our hearts again.

Here are plates of jalapeno nachos
beside bony, blood-red ribs and sequins
brush shoulders with sheltered lice at the Feast of St. Francis.
Fake fronts on a fake street, humbly robed in gray,
standing dead-eyed beyond the spill of crimson lanterns.

A cloud of flea-ridden fleece huddles muddied
beneath a tearing sky, dollops falling
among plain pike men trudging barefoot in
pence-thin plate worn over leather tunics.