August Kleinzahler

Alec Soth, August Kleinzahler, 2013

Disappointment

 A faint smell of urine 

embroidering that bouquet of mold the big cushions  

give off days the fog won't lift, 

and a shelf of bone 

growing out over the eyelids like evening's shadow  

across a field of corn— 

The whole parade 

leaking out from your shoulders, bequeathing  

to the groin a pang of distance; 

then that metallic taste in the mouth  

and a voice you had let yourself believe  

was dead 

close now by your ear, intimate and sweet: 

Well, well, well,  

look what we have here.