An afternoon inlaid with fog
like a little fishing village.
Did I come at the wrong time?
Knicked with knife and soaked overnight,
your thinking came out curved—
a paisley. I was hacking my way
through creepers
at a defunct railroad crossing
when I asked, If it’s none
of my business
why am I making a profit?
But as for you,
nothing was going on in Kubla Khan
except that you were drawing
your mind up before us
like a poison-stickled sea sponge.
Your dreamy portals were greased
all afternoon by blowflies fresh from sheep—
or sleep. I meant to say your sleep gave you
hours of swaddlings,
narcotics,
interruptions.