Andrew Goldfarb

Night Soil

the outside man
taken to furs in summertime and lost latch-keys
his somnolent edifice erupts
the inner work
with pale fountains for our troubles
faces on the floor, like parapets
who gets their silver dollar at someone else's expense?
while this base admission of unsupportable facts
and singular advice
makes sure
your fever's short
kept cloistered in green and glowing hotel rooms
while globes of perspiring nudes litter the streets
there once was a mouth like a trench
holding a silent root
and lurching to a half-remembered minuet
that seemed echoed by the scrapes of dry grass
when the pigeons fuse into one
breathing fetid moonlight
(the innard work)
deep into the earth
c'est la mort, night soil man

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