All Things Being Equal, new revisions

It's been months since I touched this one. I'm not giving up on it yet. I won't show the changes as I have lately with the Ghosts poem, as it is too labor intensive and I am somewhat tired and depressed. Feel free to comment.

Let x = x ₁
Locked in observation
with laceless shoes and
flesh turning color in
a mangled ring. As in

the circus. You lay across
the hall, or lie across the lake
of fire bridged by roads cut
straight into the mountain.
You, me, the elephant in the ring.

The baby in the car, my bottle
in the sink. The girl left an impression,
barbed wire handstanding on my back, the ass-end
of a circus pony with wobble knees, sinking,
straightening,
sinking, and the finalé spills
clowns from the car like cockroaches, midgets and stilt-
legged giants, or hoop-waisted buffoons begging
the rain with wing-spread finches,
skeletons, held close
on their heads.

Untitled poem on a photo of ex-wife #2

I'm not much for myself as a poet today. Feeling even more mediocre than usual. And this poem doesn't disprove that, certainly. But I feel the need to write, even if it is shit, and even if I'm still fixated on ex-wife #2 and her online photo and my failures as a husband. But I have a poetry blog, and what the hell am I supposed to do with it? So, I post my crappy poem.

Forgive me. I'm staring at your
photograph, the coarse, fluid lines of auburn

or ruby, the seas turned more
coffee than blood and breaking on the killing

shore. I have had my lips on
that ear. She hides her age and imperfections,

the weight of her heart, a base
called drained, and sunless. My lips have touched

that cold cheek. Windows to
windows, we look upon and see nearly reflected,

more deflected, eyes half opened
and askance, never the whole story. You should

know. The eyes have told me what
I never wanted to know. The lips, the thin lines,

as between love and apathy, stopped
to reset the clocks. Before she left.