Dear Doctor Williams
I’m afraid I need something stronger
‘cause chickens don’t fly, and I cant’ help
but be bothered by this
fact when I’m up late at night and I’m
reading your poem, wondering why
you left them there, crumpled and white on the floor like

last year’s confetti.

You see, Doctor Williams, the rain’s
got me down lately and I can’t see
what you mean
(or what it is you mean not to mean)
because maybe I’m glazed too,
greased with your witchdoctor
snake oil “remedy”.

Yet I know Doctor William’s
that I need something stronger,
Because a wheelbarrow
never destroyed
a life or mended
a wall
and unless its an abyss or synthesis it’s really not worth thinking
of at night when I pull the universe close and try to understand.

And now I need a new prescription, Doctor Anyhow,
‘cause between green eyes and black branches,
After the odes, the time in Macondo,
because of the letters and the cantos
and the leaf that fell that time
(which you most certainly did
not see)
I have realized that nothing
A bitter, stinging
“absolutely nothing”depends upon you.