[I floated I flew I fell to earth to learn the pleasures of the lowdown]

---

I floated I flew I fell to earth to learn the pleasures of the lowdown

which meant sometimes going downtown to the Ready theater

to get my ticket punched by ole hook-for-a-hand I feared ambulances

janitors knives dogwood blossoms my sister’s boyfriends one of whom

threw a knife at my head one of whom pressed his whiskers into my face

and whispered things my girlfriends’ boyfriends one of whom shot me

in the bone behind my ear at a shooting gallery my unspayed dog’s periods

we put her in my sister’s bikini underpants stuffed with a Kotex pad the girl

whose eyes were crossed cowboy boots on the wrong feet the birthmark

girl Dwight who saw through me Little S hit and killed by a jeep on 13th

St. the guy who hit him sticking his tongue in my mouth at an adult party

Jesus the eschaton which I learned from a well-read Jehovah’s Witness

was a synonym for the end of the world my father resurrecting my

father not resurrecting I feared floating flying falling the lowdown