In the room a red teapot and
A grey-green rug. Three chairs and
A cat sitting on one of them. A shelf
Filled with sea-shells. A lamp.
Pen and ink and paper on
A thin-legged table. A box
Filled with sand. Old Ono No Komachi
Talking to her much younger self.
In a corner Death quietly listening,
His cup of tea growing cold.
The man whose shadow I am
Has begun to shrink but not rapidly
As would be proper. At high noon
He doesn't disappear and at sunset
He doesn't grow tall. Turn out the light
And he remains! According to him
Plato discovered that all things here
Are shadows of better things elsewhere
So he is a shadow of his true self and I
Am a shadow of the idea of shadowness.
I ask if his true self ever treats shadowness
To a meal or at least a cup of coffee.
He says probably not since his true self
Hasn't the shadow of a thin dime.
 |
When my grandmother was young
And hadn't met the man she didn't like
But married anyway she lived in an orphanage
Though only half an orphan and worked
In a cigarette factory in Lvov. She now refuses
To appear in my dreams as I remember her --
Small and grey; smaller and greyer
Every time I saw her -- but only as she was
At fifteen -- quick, sharp-tongued, defiant --
And the one girl who understood the workings
Of the tempermental Bonsack Cigarette Roller
Which could roll 5000 cigarettes an hour
If made to feel loved and appreciated.
There's a poem right now that's
Nohow mine but keeps buzzing around
Saying I should write it down before
Its words faint from exhaustion and leave
Punctuation marks hanging in the air.
It's for sure not one of my poems and seems to be
About a girl named Loretta. Loretta has
Her points and her problems but the poetry of her
Gets right by me. I try to go back to my book but Loretta,
Who thinks I should be writing, looks through my eyes
And wants to know what makes the book more interesting
Than she is. It's not that, I'm sure the right author
(Who isn't me) will come along and turn you
Into a National Book Award and a life of
Reciting you at colleges and book clubs and
Perhaps a bowling alley. What's your book about? she says
And I say it's about Carnival season in Venice in
1755 and Casanova's having an affair with a nun
Who dresses as a man sometimes. How's it come out? she says
And I say Unhappily. The nun falls in love with
Another nun who leaves her for the French ambassador
And Casanova grows old, sitting in a library and writing books.
