TO THE KOROMO RIVER

 

Riding by

Yoshitone glanced

In a pond.

His reflection

Stayed there

Hiding

Among the weeds.

In the forest

His shadow

​Lost itself

In pieces 

Too small to reassemble.

JOINING THE ARMY OF THE DEFEATED EMPEROR

 

I believe it went something like this:

The Ming Emperor has killed himself

His adherents -- few enough and growing fewer 

Trail in a long line away from the capital,

Joined by some who'd fought for the other side

But are moved by the sight of the Emperor's ghost

Wringing its hands and weeping. A soldier

Perhaps Chow Chu, sees, centuries off,

Someone reading about him and says

"One of us, I think? Come along!" and so

My father finds himself a partisan of

The most lost of all lost causes.

SUMMER

 

Auguste sleeps on a bench

In the garden. Köbes the crow

Drops on him leaves and small branches

Until he is satisfactorily hidden.

HER EARLY YEARS

 

When Esther was young she and her sister 

Somehow decided that Esther would be

The practical one and Irene would go on

Looking beautiful, playing her violin and 

Making what looked like people 

Out of smoke of which there was a lot

In Lemberg, stored there because 

If the war came there'd be a shortage

And a smart man with a warehouse 

Full of smoke could make a thaler or two.

Esther was 14 when she began working

In a cigarette factory and became 

A timekeeper and might have made a career 

There but the factory burned down;

This wasn't, she said, a bit funny since

It put her out of a job. She asked Irina

For a turn being the pretty, musical one

But Irene said no and Esther married Max.

IN ROME

 

A minimally-staffed door needs

At least three gods. If there's a key

It needs a god too. Windows,

Have no gods and fend for themselves

SUFFRAGE

My mother's death drops by to say
She'll be twenty this year and next year
When she's old enough to vote
She means to vote for dead candidates
Since they'll understand that death
Is serious business and not to be trusted lightly
To strangers and children. I tell her the voting age
Is now eighteen; she could have voted last year
She says "Why didn't you tell me? Now
I'll just have to vote twice."

GRACE'S LETTER TO THEODORA

 

Is so long it can afford to spend several pages

Describing a new-made dress which has 

A deep bottom ruffle, about 12 inches wide

A narrow ruffle and a gathered ruffle

Almost as wide as the bottom one.

The overskirt has a mourning roll of velvet and folds

Of velvet and silk. The sleeves, cut open

Almost to the elbow, are decorated with Malta lace.

There's a black bow in front and one in back

And many, many buttons. Theodora

Might have the same dress made so she and Grace

Can be twins unless Theodora (who will soon

Decide to be Sarah instead) would rather be twins

With Bessie Winthrop, who has a new fringed velvet dress

Though fringes aren't cheap and black velvet costs the earth.

GETTING TO GUANGZHOU

For every Icarus who falls

Headlong from the sky there is

An Anti-Icarus who digs a hole

All the way to China, remembering

To make a sharpish left turn when he's

Gone about two-thirds of the way

So he doesn't drown in the Pacific.

ELIMINATING ALTERNATIVES

 

Melancholy is not clinical lycanthropy,

(The state of suspecting you're a wolf)

Nor is it kuru (when your nipples

Are thinking about killing you 

By suddenly inverting and attacking

Your interior). It isn't sadness simple;

It isn't grief unmixed nor agenbite

Of inwit. Saint Theresa says that

The pain of God setting your soul on fire

Isn't really melancholy either. Durer 

Thought melancholy had a beard

All that's known for certain is that

Melancholy is cold, dry, dark and heavy.

Lucifer's been called the first melancholic 

But insists that was God, not him. "This was,"

He says, "back before the first day so there

Was no light; the mistake was natural."

JOURNEYING

 

Having suitably prepared yourself

Having dressed in appropriate colors

Having bid your reflection farewell

You shoulder your pack and move out

Your shadow shoulders his pack too

Heavier than yours and filled

With what you meant to leave behind.

MISSION

 

To weave through alleys the moonbeam

Must act as light was never meant to

Moving in slow spirals, cultivating a taste

For music played subtly out of tune.

It must ignore silver and pretend

Its pulse quickens at the sight of gold

(Where did it acquire a pulse let alone

One that could plausibly quicken?

Must it have blood too then, and veins

And arteries to hold its blood and then

A body to hide veins and arteries and all?

It must.) Learn to swagger and sway, walking

With exaggerated care after long nights spent

Drinking down by the docks until two dim moons

Shake their heads and ask why you've not found

A certain scatter of unblessed bones.

EVERYWHERE

 

Used to ubiquity, God

Going up a hill

Nods to Himself 

Coming down 

But tells St. Lucina,

Who's walking with Him,

"Don't stop to talk;

We'll be here forever."

JUST AS WELL YOU DIDN'T WANT TO BE KING

 

Since you're not Banquo or Macbeth

We're not witches right now; we have

No prophesies for you. Our cauldron

Is filled with soap and boiling water;

Return to us when you have laundry.

AFTER THE DEATH OF SMALL ENEMIES

 

In synagogue, will everyone rise

For the mourners' kaddish?

Will you light yartzeit candles

Every day just when twilight

Forbids your eye from telling

A blue thread from a green one?

Will you wonder: all those destroyed worlds --

What would they have been like?

PRAYER

 

The oni's god is powerful

But dangerous. He is also 

Deaf. Before praying 

Try banging on a pot for

Fifteen minutes or so

To get his attention.

CHANGE

 

After years of threats and promises my better self

Has found at last someone else to be better than. 

This has, of course, required considerable paperwork

And an administrative restructuring. For now,

I am myself only on nights and weekends

While working -- provisionally -- from my better self's office

(He left his file cabinets locked but my worse self

Opened them with a paper clip.)

GENERAL FITZWILLIAMS' WILL

 

To the maid Mary Rocke he left 

Stocks, some cash, an annuity

All his shirts, two nightgowns,

His lace ruffs, a snuffbox

With his dear wife's picture on it 

And his gold dumb repeater watch.

(A dumb repeater keeps time 

Just as well as those that speak; 

It simply doesn't brag about it.)

NB

 

I am a note in the middle --

I think I'm in the middle --

Of a very long notebook. The author

Wrote me down meaning, I'm sure,

To return and work me into a poem

But he never has. I blame his habit

Of writing in no order so page 17

May be written after page 206. Also,

He often writes in the dark. I am,

I'd say, quite a good idea. If you know

The author tell him he could do worse

Than look again at page 551 

Of Notebook 46B, about halfway down.

SIGNS

 

When she's six blocks away

The windows begin to shudder in their frames.

When she's five blocks away

Every towel in the linen closet refolds itself.

When she's four blocks off

The credit cards in your wallet cancel themselves.

Three blocks? Your inherited silverware

Now has strangers' initials deep-etched in.

Two blocks; there's no time to find a new reflection;

You must comb your hair and shave without one.

When she's one block away, all the doors in your house 

Unlock, then lock and then unlock themselves again.

LOOKING AT THE FIRE

 

Anne Damer, sculptor, stands on the roof

Of Richard Cosway's house, watching 

The Opera House burn; her left arm 

Rests on a concrete sphere, gilded 

To lool like the Sun; her right hand touches

A statue of Minerva which will speak

If it's in the mood and finds you attractive.

A spark flying across Suffolk Street

Lands in her hand leaving a scar

In the shape of bird in flight. Years later,

Dying, she'll write a will directing

She be buried with a mallet, the bones

Of her favorite dog, an apron 

And a selection of new-sharpened chisels.