I give you my word.
Coming Down Cleveland Avenue
The fumes from all kinds
of machines have dirtied
the snow. You propose
to polish it, the miles
between home and wherever
you and your lily
of a woman might go. You
go, pail, brush, and
suds, scrubbing down
Cleveland Avenue
toward the Hartford Life
Insurance Company. No
one appreciates your
effort and one important
character calls you
a baboon. But pretty
soon your darling jumps
out of an elevator
and kisses you and you
sing and tell her to
walk the white plains
proudly. At one point
you even lay down
your coat, and she, in
turn, puts hers down for
you. And you put your
shirt down, and she, her
blouse, and your pants,
and her skirt, shoes—
removes her lavender
underwear and you slip
into her proud, white skin.
Reapers of the Water
The nets newly tarred
and the family arranged
on deck—Mass has started.
The archbishop in
his golden
cope and tall miter, a resplendent
figure against an unwonted background, the darting
silver of water,
green and lavender
of the hyacinths, the slow
movement of occasional
boats. Incense floats
up and about the dripping gray
moss and the sound of the altar bell
rings out. Automatically all who have stayed
on their boats drop to their knees with the others
on shore. The prelate, next taking up his sermon,
recalls that the disciples of Christ were drawn
from the fishermen
of Galilee. Through
the night, at the lake, they cast in vain.
Then He told
them to try once more, and lo!
the nets came heavily loaded…. Now
there will be days when
you, too, will
cast your nets without success—be not
discouraged; His all-seeing
eye will be
on you. And in the storm, when
your boat tosses like a thin
leaf, hold firm….
Who knows whose man will be next? Grandmère
whose face describes how three of hers—
her husband and those two boys—had not returned,
now looks toward
her last son—
it is a matter of time.
The prelate dips his gold aspergillum
into the container of holy water
and lifts it high. As the white
and green boats
pass, the drops fall on the scrubbed
decks, on the nets, on the shoulders
of the nearest ones, and they move up
the long waterway.
The crowds watching and waving:
the Sea Dream, the Normandie,
the Barbara Coast, the Little Hot
Dog, the God
Bless America, the Madame of Q.—
racing past the last tendrils
of the warm pudding
that is Louisiana.
Epithalamion for Tyler
I thought I knew something
about loneliness but
you go to the stockyards
buy a pig’s ear and sew
it on your couch. That, you
said, is my best friend—we
have spirited talks. Even
then I thought: a man of
such exquisite emptiness
(and you cultivated it so)
is ground for fine flowers.
For Mother on Father’s Day
You
