• The hard-won privileges of the dead
• Dead men's tales
• The clothes never get clean
• Title belt
• St. Sophronia's cathedral
• Or cough up smoke into a handkerchief
• Now that she's been high enough up to see Paris

Or cough up smoke into a handkerchief

It goes like this, after I eat--
Him: Will that be Visa or Mastercharge?
Me: No.  I pay for this with my life.
I pay for everything lately with my life!
He holds out his hand.  I can sweat pomegranate
seeds of blood into his hand.
Or cut off locks of my hair.
Where I buy groceries, he's making
a wig of a handlebar mustache.
Where I buy a wristwatch
he says, "No.  Your money, your life
is no good here."  It is humiliating.
I wish I could shrink into a corner--
then pop up like a firework pago
with a different life, a life The History Channel
could take seriously,
with blood in my shoes--"I walked all the way
here from Zion."--or a briefcase handcuffed
to my wrist, or Pavarotti's life.
My beard, my stomach--impeccable.
"How is this?"  Will this satisfy you?"
"Oh," he says.  "My cup runneth over."