CORRECTIONS

Time has a short beard
Which he sometimes dyes.
Time doesn't flow
(He used to; now he doesn't)
He stutter-steps. He crawls.
He tries to dance on point.
But fails. He drinks much more
Than he should but 
Much less than he wants to.

LATE

Some time after Zhuang Zhou died a butterfly
Flew twice around his garden and then into his house
Going straight to the philosopher 's shrine.
Where he muttered a brief prayer (butterflies
Were articulate then and punctilious
In matters of religion) and apologized
For not having come earlier.

LONGBRANCH

An old grey cat named Hamlet leapt
Into the mirror forty years ago.
Sometimes, you catch a glimpse
Of his teeth or fur or a long tail
With a kink in it. A discreet claw
Pulls a thread from your reflected suit or,
If time and light demand it, draws
A drop of your image's blood so that
His pupils narrow with sudden anger.

COMMUTER

From the rain emerges
Sparafucile the assassin.
Right now he is not
Intent on murder but
Just trying to get home.
Assassins never carry
Umbrellas; there is some
Bylaw forbidding it;
I share mine with him.
His high soft boots
Silence his steps.
We both wind up
Thoroughly soaked.

PENTIMENTO

The old ghost stood still, pressing herself
Into the wall. She seemed surprised to find 
She was a shadow clad in a medieval nun's costume
Just beyond the doorway in a painting by Degas
If you were hurrying through the Jeu de Paume 
Late one cold afternoon in 1970
As I was, she might've made you pause,
As she asked who'd painted you so convincingly
And if you'd consider calling her back to mind
Fifty years and a few weeks later.

ENTRIES

St. Peter of the Gallows isn't fond of
St. Peter of the Keys; his folk
Make their own ways into Heaven,
Winding through debatable lands
With detestable spirits, leaving
Bits and pieces of themselves behind.
Because of them the accountants
Can never make their numbers
Come out right so mathematics,
For all its airs, will always know itself
To belong among the inexact sciences.

RISING

When the Slanted Man one day

Forgives the fallen angels God

Will look on astonished as

The lords of Hell plummeting

Upwards, fill the sky with shouts

Of surprise and joy and anger.

Some of them will attempt to slow

Their progress, clinging to tree

Branches or chimneys or even

Each other. Others will rise

Still clutching the attributes they

Assumed when they first fell:

Flails and forks and forceps and flensers

Or holding tight to large close-printed books.

Those who were the principle

Demons of pride will still wear

Even in offices and suites new-furbished

Their hats and boots, their cloaks and cowls

Sinisterly shaped, unspeakably colored.

MYSTERY

The mystery is over; as usual the irritating lovers

Who complicated things so the story wasn't a novella

Had the last word, promising to spend eternity together

But secretly relieved their eternity ends with the book.

The murderer has been unmasked, has confessed,

Has gone mad; has killed himself, has been

Dragged off in handcuffs, silent, remorseful, and spitting venom.

In the blank pages that follow, the first corpse,

Dead since the eighth paragraph, sits up,

Accepts a cigarette from the second corpse

(Who died because She Knew Too Much),

Looks glumly into empty space and speaks.

"Do you feel solved? I don't; not at all. That detective

Didn't like me, didn't understand me. I'm sure

If you hadn't died too he'd have let the murderer go."

They smoke silently  -- it's the 1930s so smoking

Is still good for you and anyway they’re not

Going to get deader. "Why are we here?"

Asks Corpse Two." I'm not speaking metaphysically;

Why are we here in particular; why are there blank pages

So we linger when everyone else is gone?"

"It's all symbols; it's all hidden meanings. Blank pages

Mean the story is not quite over or stand

For what we might have done if we'd lived

There's no writing on them because once we died

We stopped doing much." "We're smoking;

We're chatting."  “But only to each other.

The book's been shut; the reader

Is already starting to forget us while he thinks

Of how he could have written a mystery

So much better than this -- one in which the lovers

Might've been as amusing as they thought themselves."

AUNTIE EM

After the Superintendent retired
The Surete -- no one knows why --
Hired Superintendent Anti-Maigret
Who works ceaselessly unsolving
All of Maigret's old cases.
There are rumors that lately
Superintendent Anti-anti-Maigret
Has been seen shadowing him.

PG

Jeeves exists to thwart Bertie Wooster.
Because of him, Bertie can never
Have a mustache, play the banjolin
Or wear a purple tweed suit with
A too wide green and gold necktie.
If Bertie ever gets engaged
Or starts wondering why he of all men
Should have many fierce aunts and a few
Translucent uncles but no parents at all
Jeeves makes him climb trellises at midnight ,
Or steal silver cow-creamers or has him arrested
To preserve the good name of Honoria Glossop.
At night, Jeeves watches Bertie's dreams
Before he does and excises the scenes
In which Bingo Little or Tuppy Glossop
Says "Bertie, it is you and you alone I love."