“and even you forgot those brilliant flashes seen from afar” -Ruth Stone

BELOVED TRAIN


vampires cry blood


each poet
is required
before the time
of their
death
to stay up and
write
a vampire
novel. Even

though the
light doth

Kill them.
Day light
kills
vampires.
As you know.


It will be
a short novel.

I desired
to burn
like Joan
of Arc
being
woman man
saintly
and the
flames
made me
be something
magnific
ent. And


What was
the story?
A novel
requires
a hall
a corridor
a prismatic
corridor
human bodies
are coming
down
while being
alive
which we
the dead
watch. The candle
the human
lights
is a tiny
bell to the vampire
he comes
one night
and puts
his cold
hand
in my
mouth
and demands
that I
stop
changing so
he can
get his
story out.
A dog pushes
against
the thing
in which
I emboss
the book
glinting
and the ancient
word ‘boss’
a strange
globe
from which
spin forth
the armaments
of the vam
pires
pain
his long life
his very
long life
warrior
once
housewife
next
pad on a dog’s
foot, sore
another
time
maritime
always getting
licked. The
dog putting
her damp
paw onto the ground
in the
night
before the
day in
which the vampire
was born
I mean
he died.
I have
failed
in my task
of writing
my vampire
novel. I will
never try
again
but in the time
of a global
pandemic
rules
have changed
no more
essay portion
of SATs


no more
this
no more
this
no more
this

Appears in this issue

Eileen Myles’s 22 books include For Now, evolution, Afterglow, I Must Be Living Twice/new & selected poems, and Chelsea Girls.

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