nebulae

hidden in your reach
the horrible noise of death in my walls
passes this time the Illinois Central
engine leaving me alone in this house

Rod Steiger on the television
dealing with hot merchandise
you told me it was a gift
like walking on water you told me
there are ever shifting surfaces

leaving me alone tonight
you said me there are riffs
in this universe spending me
in decision that nebulae
is god's onanism
left to drift
in no conception across
this sky

I guess my parents should have left me
in the stars or mud—

The Rod Steiger movie is certainly The Pawnbroker. Scarritt was located a house away from the Illinois Central 3rd Street tracks that run through Springfield. Onanism refers to masturbation and "spilling your seed" uselessly, on the ground in the Old Testament. The Hubble pictures of the universe and the detritus of matter bear this image out. This poem refers to Alison Clare Gaughan, circa 1977.