BACON BEFORE SLEEP (SUNDAY 6 MAY)

On the overland,
hurrying to the coast:
blood red and stock-white
in lines,
talk,
and a strong scent of green -
of past green,
of crash.

She hates it, hides her head.
It sounds like a riffling,
of heat and fat wasting off.

In the woods:
morels, poison no poison,
between bread and bread
with day lilies and lettuce leaves,
lilybuds, slaughter,
he slaughter.

Until I concentrate the light,
concentrate.

The coast, ten lengths long.

Steve: run into the
dead giant, bone.

____

Spring of 2001: I ate a pound of bacon every night for a week, immediately preceding sleep. The poems (8 total) were handwritten—glasses off, cheek to pillow—on a stomach full, in this way, of bacon, tangled and greased. A pound per poem. This one (Sunday 6 May) is dedicated to three friends: Steve, Nicolette, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington.