The Trash Book

for Joe Brainard

Then I do not know what

to paste next in the

Trash Book: grass, pretending

to be a smear maybe or

that stump there that knows

now it will never grow

up to be some pencils or

a yacht even. A piece of

voice saying (it sounds like)

“I thought her did.” Or

the hum that hangs in only

my left ear. Or “Beer” not

beer, all wet, the quiver

of the word one night in

1942 looking at a cardboard

girl sitting on a moon in

West Virginia. She smiled

and sipped her Miller’s.