Excerpt from the book Bad Judgement

When Nights Were Full of Sex and Churches

Three chimes, and it’s everyone I’ve ever slept with,
even once, even just barely, swept free into the light
of a cloudless moon, waving, hi, hi. They are drunk, pale,
silly upside down, their shoes dancing above their heads.
These many men are smiling, looking down, seeing me.
I can hear the happy clatter of their dangling genitals.
But why can’t I see a cow with pretty eyes, a gold chicken
in a peasant sky? Why can’t I be that red-haired woman
sleeping in Chagall’s heavenly tree? Then I could dream
of wedding veils, floating higher, turning blue
in a world made of colors and marital sex, happiness,
breasts painted into big circles, childlike hands at ease.
In my night sky, I have only men, harmonizing:
There was a serpent who loved to sing, there was,
there was, hiss hiss. Thus, he forsook his serpenting
because he was in love, he was. Finished, they blow kisses
through transparent lips as though they have given me
something at last, but at the sound of midnight horns,
they leave as spooks do: easily. I open a window,
calling after them: I remember. I still have a red dress
hanging behind the sheaves of blue gauze in my closet.