Table of Contents
CONTENTS
∞
“Your Life Is Meaningless” 3
Capital I 4
My Past Life as a Songbird 5
Fifth Year: Wood 6
Song While the Children Are Napping 7
Palomas, Ciudad de México 8
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain Wrestling with the Angel 9
The Young Virgin 10
Faith 11
Threnody with a White Ford Bronco inside It 12
Koko the Gorilla Is Dead 14
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain’s Childhood Wound 15
Hunter’s Moon, Gettysburg 16
Sixth Year: Iron 17
My Past Life as a Dinosaur 18
Starman Tractate: Chameleon, Comedian,
Corinthian, and Caricature 19
The Martian 20
Self-Portrait as the Love Child of Kurt Cobain
and Emily Dickinson 22
Elegy with a Cameo by Linda Ronstadt 23
∞
After the Flood 27
Is That a Gun in Your Pocket 28
Minority Report 29
Fourth of July 30
Black Friday 31
My Brain Is Mad for Baudrillard 32
Self-Portrait as Cindy Sherman’s Instagram Account 33
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain in Drag 34
My Past Life as a Puritan 35
Seventh Year: Wool 36
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain’s Muse 37
Last Tango in Paris 38
Poem in the Manner of the Year in Which I Was Born 39
Eighth Year: Bronze 40
Starman Tractate: Let All the Children Boogie 41
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain’s Imaginary Friend 42
Lament in the Style of Monica Lewinsky’s Blue Dress 43
Meditation 44
The Year of the Eclipse 45
∞
Requiem with an Amulet in Its Beak 49
The Cemetery Is Full of People Who Would Love
to Have Your Problems 50
Postmortem 51
Self-Elegy with Hand Grenade 52
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain’s Hungry Ghost 53
Starman Tractate: Ashes to Ashes 54
Transfiguration 55
My Past Life as a Supernova 56
The Great Mysteries 57
Elegy with Spray Paint Can 58
Goya’s Red Boy 60
Ninth Year: Willow 61
Hysterectomy 62
Like Running into Hillary Clinton in the Woods 63
Recurring Dream: Elevator 64
Gladiator 66
Self-Portrait as Kurt Cobain’s Left-Handed Guitar 67
Cache la Poudre 68
A Year Later 69
Notes 70
Acknowledgments 71
