I faced the Star Maker, the candy butcher
from the window of a Pullman car
just outside Pueblo, Colorado,
from a plush and velvet world
with plugs of tobacco
outside a jelly factory.
The vibration of names, a cardinal—
Behind me, Gabriel.
Rounded up like rats
on Metacombie Kay.

First leap at Little Steel,
and the invaders vacuumed 
with a ferocity of elegance
seldom encountered, and never
in circles or indifferently.
The Santa Fe Railroad was really something in those days.

The mountains had long ago crumbled away,
erased by some soft artillery on the radio.
I thought I saw my twin, limbless on the desert,
drowning near a herd of angels: I reached out the window
and killed him with a single blow.

The momentousness of the moment demanded it:
there were organs in the post office
and weapons in the organs.
The angels signaled for pandemonium
and soon I was engulfed with temptations,
I was invested with contact with
the populous interiors of many dying stellar worlds.

I faced the Star Maker, the candy butcher,
swarms of burnt-out stars,
from the window of a Pullman Car.