Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver

Says a procedure, a regime,
process is how he does it.

Tight as alcohol, as 'all the time',
expressing in pellets of dialogue things

rotating just out of reach, behind
the soaking eyes of a woman,

the next level of poured bourbon.
He holds a case around his woman,

and what he's collected, bought into,
latched to disease and displayed

in PI two-tone, on pages pouring
with the hiss of hot burgers and coffee percolators:

world without metaphor, declared without tact,
men drink, love; all die -

It's the consonant drop: epithets snap.
Your homeland gets outfigured in time.