Two Poems

She Complains of Him at Last

If he had been a poet and no magician

If he had been a magician and no poet

Things might have been well or well enough

But as it was, all was confusion.

His idea of me gradually turned solid

And began showing up at meetings

Raising obscure points of order

Or waiting afterwards with an umbrella

Worried that I’d catch cold from the rain.

Even dead I could not get away from her

She pleaded my case so well that heaven –

That cold and rooky place – made room for me.

My friends in hell think I’ve forgotten them.

On a July day in 1656 the lawyers’ men saw

In the entrance to the house Rembrandt had lost 

Twenty five paintings, including three

By his friend Jan Lievens with whom

He had shared a studio when they were young.

Also, two naked plaster children,

A plaster head and a plaster child (asleep),

Four Spanish chairs with Russian leather seats

Two black-seated chairs, a pine step-stool

And a shabby shoe. Since then, that shoe

Has been searching for its mate. I have seen it

Under a streetlight, on subway tracks and –

As a prop – in someone else’s dream.