I have been ill all day and finally
my body and house are quiet. Isn’t
quintessential a quack of a word?
I eat this banana bread my lover made
so to not think about not thinking.
More and more, I dream in the Spanish
of my skeptics. When awake, I
work hard to forgive gods for not
being in my image. When feeling
weak, I smell oranges, as if my mind
is lost in an orchard. A warning?
I peel the day with trembling hands.

Señorita Rita makes a mistake in her
personal ad: want to fell like a lady.
The feel of that. Ladies do fall
in love. The unchaste are fallen.
Fell four it. She likes the human
error of it, to see who’ll be intrigued.
Eve fell so she could feel. Flee is
one L too much to bear. She needs
an emergency champagne mimosa in
the Midwest, but where? We drive
Main Street to be seen, be obscene and
I feel delicious, the moon’s kept boy.
One man falls for Señorita Rita and
takes off his shirt in his Mustang.
She says to us, “spell check my spells.”