Michael Dumanis

________

Ode

One

I am in love with Johnny, because he does love me,
and I am in love with Stanley, because he will never love me,
and Thorvald, whose uncle carved icebergs off Norway,
were I to fall for Salvo, we'd move to Italy,
and with my locksmith, she is rough, she's short on money,
am I in love with Kattrin, who has made herself mute,
Dolores, I love you, the pain in your name,
dear Mindy, because you seem pie-faced and sweet, make me tea,
let me molest the rose mole in the cleft of your chin,
and let me molest, on your back, every sinkhole, each nodule,
I'll reconceive all these as what, reaffirmations,
and I am in love yes I am with my childhood's squat flat,
and with the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, which I chose not to read,
but could not put down on account of its red leather binding.

Two

This country is so thin and worn that we
can see each other through it, and I love
how you are thus aware that I, however threadbare
I might have become, am still here,
and I am in love with myself, for how can
I not be and still be, and I love the loud rain,
it means water, and also the cross in the churchyard,
it signifies what, history, and how I miss every movie
I've seen, even Delousing Alfred, even, I trust, Ramming Paige,
they comprise my itinerary, and I am in love with the cranes,
metal and tall on Sicilian hills, which both Salvo and I one still dawn
from one aperture in a small inn, thought were crosses,
O Fantasies, O Signs of Always Progress.
Later, I spent too much time in a city,

Three

I really enjoyed it, I felt almost holy inside it,
there were some orchids I contrived to be.