So for a while, I started writing poems in response
to the stock crisis that took their titles from the closing
number of the Dow Jones Industrial average on the day
that I was working the poem, and making the notes that
would make the poem.
There's a whole procedure I won't get into now.
But the title of this poem is October 14th.
The Dow closes up 10,015.
So it was written a while ago.
Don't panic.
And it's about a moment we were trying to start a family.
I bleed a little, peyote tea waits in the refrigerator,
a Ferris wheel spins and spins at the fair,
after the miscarriage we search
for rings with missing stones, unmatched earrings,
sell our gold, ride the Ferris wheel bigger
than the one in Paris,
my parents pray for us, I play Dylan's "Spanish Boots"
over and over, watch a sunroof fill with night,
like seeing a film of people I recognize
but don't really know,
Schuyler says you can't get at sunset
listing colors, between the liars' trees and shopping carts
we buy a house, cry in bed, leave
the child unnamed
pink lemon pearly blue white