... having been breathed out

Please god love me and buy me

Read this hillock and ride me
Wraith typing all day for money.

God bought me today for two silver fish in a can
God bought me tomorrow for bland in a pan
and a card an email from Rebecca

Bought four hours of my control alt delete shut down
Bought a new day-section with a headstand

My commerce in shall

Sky like a grandstand
Transact

God performed me today for a half minute
lucky
in locker room hiding my boobs from the kids
and my hair is silky and my mane shot silk gold

Bought a book on economy
Georgie Bataille
Called about plane tickets
Georgie Bataille
I bought my debt today
Georgie Bataille hooray
Debt off my God today

God off my debt in a macular hole

I dream of an end like a fount to this night
Run thinner and thinner and then it’s all light
Macerated in signal

by my go

I bought my ghost I walk my ghost

—Catherine Wagner, "Macular hole"

I discovered this poem while browsing for titles for my Yuletide story. It’s useless for that purpose, but I really like it for itself. Especially at this commerce- and god-confounded time of year.

(Also, I’m getting brilliant little echoes of John Donne’s “Batter my heart, three-person’d God” sonnet in the opening, which is a two-for-one poetic knockout, as far as I’m concerned. The general aesthetic seems sort of… John Donne meets Courtney Love, actually, so how can I resist?)