Rock Salt Angel (for Jim Carroll) *rough draft*

Rock Salt Angel

 (For Jim Carroll)

August 1, 1949

September 11, 2009

"My voice has a quiver.  That's where you store the arrows before you shoot."  Jim Carroll

                                When  your 

                   lash of red hair

                struck the desk, 

                a crop of echoes

                stirred in the

                 littering

          reeds of Upper Manhattan.

      A quiet evening army of

  glowing orchards

    began to fizz, and

pimples burst

    dribbling stars

   on the smooth

    foreheads of junkies

                already so old

they  bum

                 cigarettes

later

                each

 morning.

                       2.

 There is a paddle blowing

                up young  arms,

a bamboo boat

                is stirring down

                   a grid,

                      and,

                 King Arthur

                of these boroughs,

you  sweep  with

                antiseptic grace

through the city's

                sewage scape.

       3.

                     A man

                skins a basketball

   on the George Washington Bridge.

                He is drunk   

   having accidentally

                killed his wife

while performing

   a Ghost Dance

he learned from Sitting Bull

  also known as

   J. Carroll!

  Naish

                in 1954.

His voice quivers,

    he sobs,

                 then the arrows

shoot.

Page after page,

      leather,

   curved and bent

back

  fly into

   the river

                  blossoming

           like Venus Indian Scalps

              into

         genus  flowers  

                all over the Hudson.

                  4.

A  Spaulding Outdoor

worn, fingered,  

                thick with pigskin

whistles in

smooth

                passage 

through

                the net's 

hoop                    

         skirt   

                of

white 

                diamonds.

                   5.

                A   man

          who has forgotten

     her name

 in Grand Central

         preps

                 his girl's pale

    arm for

                vain designs.

                6.

She falls asleep

                in the bathtub,

  her eyes growing varicose.

A poet

                on the nod

near  St. Mark's

                 dreams  of

fucking  Ophelia,

                                and the painting

                changes.

         Her eyes  open

                as yours' close,

                in  Innsmouth,

home

         and yet

                so far away.