down and later the piano
you were picking out Mancini arrangements
Nat King Cole My Fair Lady and the theme
from Mondo Cane
you sang them into the woodwork
and when it really was
a table for one and a single rose
that hard lost time
I heard Errol Garner play I only
have eyes for you in a winter house dancing
with knots in my throat past midnight
and your brave tra-la-la
half a world away
it’s a lonely thing to do
and you couldn’t get used to the cold
or the hole in the bed
the silence after you sang out
the songs that would never mean dancing again
oh my sentimental mother
you died
and I saw you in each other’s arms again
an hour from dawn
just as it should have been
my dear
I took your rings and came back to the real
life dance of these years
a song by songs and it seems I don’t know all the words
because you never did
but
here we are driving the coasts of our dreams and
bending again in time
over the precious cradle of the heart
Colloquy
virgins plus curtains minus dots claret and celestial blue
people still go to cottages in moody seaside weather
to read for a week how will we do it now?
when I go for walks words stalk along too
I’ll be travelling mid-February and can’t guarantee a lucid mind
what about a big table in a room with windows
looking over the wild and wavy event?
or good merganser fans unfolding folding thought out there
one of these days we’ll tend to them
those fair fictitious people the women
Oldest and Most Loyal American Friend
1
more to our liking—
the idea of a winged victory
headless to be sure
but lucidly and in good humor
she’ll answer our questions:
when did the line begin
to curve underwater like that?
why are the roses (which aren’t
even here) suddenly twisting
into circles? why are we drawn
to these figures? Samothrace
you’ve vanished
in your place, le juste milieu,
Gertrude stalks
the little lobsters of Perpignan
replaces the bright water with
a clear chablis she’ll drink
them with tonight
make a feast of tumult eat
its flesh crack the golden shell
and suck confusion’s juice
wet ankles tucked-up skirt
prismatic drops in the bucket
on the stolen stele
knock it off
fish it out
2
Common cheap and tender
the pleasure of a purely predatory
recipe, say crawfish étouffée
we were seduced at once by
the little town (no poetry) and thought
what a happy life it would be
only to cultivate white
raspberries (sea also) iced
champagne by the approved method
then go to the Lyric Restaurant
drink solstitial dazzle on the terrace
and order the house specialty
you’ll wait an hour but it will fly
hot dry white wine, bouquet and bouillon
the rifts and the tears are your own
in the interstices of the lobster meat
a rich dark roux from which the bouquet
may be removed They did not in Perpignan
Reading Zukofsky’s 80 Flowers
lavenders blue
roll your eleven weeks onto summer’s late belly and look out
at the world with your black olive eyes
this
