By now, sir, you expect a second installment.
What novel is worth its ink if the hero's ship
never finishes sinking, if the cold tide

In evening light's splayed radiance,
in a field of scrub and vines hedging a river,
a boy found a black snake sunning itself.

Were I there, leaning against a London building's
filthy stonework, gazing by chance into a street
at the moment of this carriage's transit

If I tell a story of America it will be with the needle
splitting Demuth's needle-pocked skin-how his blood blooms
in insulin as he hunches his shoulder to shield the syringe

My mother wanted to believe she would never lose me,

the way she wanted to believe in Christ
but now maybe all she believes is Thomas,