At various points in the sky there are
Rabbits posted. Every so often they leave
Their holes (you cannot imagine a hole in
The sky because you are not a
Rabbit) and see the Sun barreling down at
Them. "You again!" they mutter and give it a
Hard kick to speed it on its way.
Every now and then Cotyto,
The Thracian goddess of immorality
Leaves a pamphlet in my mailbox
Or a flyer under my door handle
Advising me she's still doing business
At the old address -- the one
I never could find fifty years ago.
I read that one overmastered by anger
Should pray to St. Jerome. Having no reason
To walk down Seventh Avenue, where he sleeps
Most nights in doorways, I haven't seen Jerome
In years but, being angry, sought him out.
We sat together, not speaking, being angry together.
As if she didn't have enough on her plate
She wakes to find she's become a saint
With unlimited access to the illimitable Grace of God
She slams her coffee mug down, breaking it
Then irritably makes the pieces reassemble.
As everyone knows, Gian Giacomo Trivulzio
Led the French invasion of Milan in 1499
And later commissioned Leonardo da Vinci
To build him a tomb which -- no surprise! --
Was never built. His tombless ghost haunts
Leonardo's designs, frightening no one
If we did our job right you'll scarcely hear it:
Just a very soft click when twilight starts
If we were in a hurry, though, there might be
A rasp or a shrill squeak. We've an arrangement
With certain corvids for such occasions.
Who make themselves conspicuous so you'll think
It was just a contrary grackle or some angry crows.
When he was a clothing cutter my grandfather Max
Didn't go home during busy season but slept,
As did the other workers, on the cutting tables
Or on piles of fabric. At the beginning of the season
Their dreams expected to find them in their beds
And, disappointed, might be seen moving slowly
Through the late-night streets, cursing their ill-fortune.
Max's friend Shepsie -- his real name is lost now
And may have been lost then -- had just one dream
It was ragged from having been dreamt so often
And though the tailors did their best for it,
Sewing up holes and patching it with remnants,
The police sometimes arrested it for vagrancy.
