GREY SUNDAY, CLOSE TO TWILIGHT

The woman washing my corpse was a stranger
Oi! I yelled, Who are you to be doing this for me?
It wasn't included in the contract. I shan't pay you;
I've no money anyway.” She ignored me
Going about her business with depressing calm
Deploying any number of sponges and rags
Sometimes she just soaped her hands to wash
Some hard to reach crevice, drying them afterwards
With a yellow towel, coarsely woven.
I'd have thought it a simple matter but she was thorough
And careful. I decided to change my tune.
Plainly she was a professional, deserving courtesy
It wasn't her fault that no one had come forward
To perform this last service. How long, I asked
Have you been washing corpses? Did you once plan
A different career? Did you take corpse-washing 101
Back in college? "Little corpse," she said
"Learn how to stop talking."

ENCRYPTED

A slight mistake; instead of a man
A lead statue of a man was sent
It was late and there were no stars
Available for money (love? We had some
But not much and no intent of using it
To purchase starlight). We thought
We remembered so well that darkness
And a few drinks would make no difference.
It is a handsome statue though the features
Are slightly blurred. It cannot walk on water
That it can manage to stay afloat at all,

Vulnerable and desperately flailing,
Is a sort of miracle.

MORE DICKINSON OR LESS

If Emily Dickinson had never been
Or some other walked in her place
Never dreaming she wasn't the right
Miss Emily, her poems, unwritten,
Would -- for a time at least --
Stay together, seeking someone
To midwife them into to the world.
Adjectives and adverbs might be first to leave
They can find work anywhere but always
Are the first to be fired. Then some verbs
Would begin to wander, coming back 
When evening fell but one evening
Not coming back at all. The nouns
Might huddle together and go to sleep
Turning as they slept to stone. At last,
There'd be just small heaps of dashes,
Variously sized, lying by the road
So oddminded folk could wonder
What possible use they might have.

TO THE TUNE

When I was in law school I lived much
Among English majors. Several of them,
At one point or another, told me
That most Emily Dickinson poems
Can be sung to "The Yellow Rose of Texas."
Apparently they felt I needed to know this
Which I did. Still, they might have mentioned
That singing her poems to that tune
Was Miss Dickinson's party piece.
A few glasses of Madeira and she'd
Be up on a table, banjo in hand,
Warbling "Because I cudden stop fer Death
He kinely stopped fer me." After she died
Amherst parties became so much duller.

HAARLEM KIRCHE AGAIN

The painting's staffage are ignoring God
Since He plainly wishes to pass incognito.
As usual, He's inhumanly handsome
And, having forgotten about scale,
Stands 10 or 11 feet tall. Also,
A nimbus hovers over His head.
An officious angel having taken pains
To smuggle it across the border

Disguised as cookware
(Yes? You want to know whether the angel
Or God's nimbus was disguised?

Either.

Both.)
He ducked into the painting to be less noticeable
And took a seat behind a pillar which Saanredam

Put there in case God needed a place

To hide behind for a moment or two. Soon,

The servant sitting beside him will start her story;

It will hold him rapt, even though he wrote it.

SIMPLER

Not being a priority of Heaven
I flicker when the winds are strong
Or God is distracted. Once or twice
Birds and fieldmice have remade me
With hollow bones and feathers,
Leaving out those parts which require
Elaborate machines to properly install.

BERYL

I have two names never used but mine
Unless they've wandered off. Say them;
Let's see who answers.

                              Perhaps the names
Sitting so long in the dark grew a whole man
So they could be his names. He may wonder
Why he was named for my great uncle,
My grandfather Joe's older brother Beryl,
Who called himself Barney. My mother
Said he was tall. She'd have told me more
If I'd ever asked.