Cure #1:  If You Live in Georgia and God Speaks Directly to You
for Howard Finster

Listen. Give up your day job:
lay your lawnmower repair tools gently in the cement.

With a stick, scratch the date God said, Be an artist.
Paint as many angels as time allows on all the junk

from all the junkyards in town. Bring home broken down lamps,
smashed-up cars. Stack them. Name your backyard 'Eden.'

And when your bones begin to ache, and when the end
starts its slow saunter towards you

hew your own white coffin. Tell your long-bewildered wife
the palette and brushes are hers, as are any remaining heavens.



Cure #2:  Unrequited Love

Find an egg a hen laid and left.  
Cradle it in your palm. Write his name
over the entire shell. Do not let the shell break.  

Find a body of water. It must run.
No lakes. No ponds. Stand facing away.
Toss that well-inked egg over your shoulder.

Listen for the way it breaks
the skin of the water,
the current eating it whole.

You know how this story goes:
do not forget, do not look back.
Walk straight home.
Talk to no one. After that, be sensible.



Cure #3:  Boredom

Put one penny under your tongue.  
The whole day, hum

I am a rich man who will outlive
my worry. Watch out what you wish for.  

At dusk, when the penny
has made your mouth taste of rust

and blood, when the wind has stilled,
walk to the nearest train track.  

Place the penny on the rail. Wait.
The earth will shake:

a train will come and flatten it.  
Carry it, useless coinage, to your grave.



Cure #4: Buzzards

If the roof of your home by sad chance is chosen by buzzards
as a roost, cancel paper delivery immediately�

they will only beat you to it, eat the news.  
Install a sprinkler system on your roof.

Then string wires all across it.  
More than likely they simply will feast

on the neighbors' papers, will strut among your rooftop wires
and pluck them. The twang will keep you from your sleep.  

Buzzards adjust better than the rest of us.
They will preen in the rooftop rains.  

Your ceiling will begin to leak.
Forget the buckets. Give it at most one week. Move.