LOVE LETTERS

For a reasonable fee Francis Birkenhead
Composed and wrote out love letters
In a smooth flowing Chancelry hand;
For a bit more, he'd make them rhyme.

On slow days he might offer to add an air
Of manly candor or maidenly reserve
At little or no extra charge.
Being poor, he could rarely afford
To hire himself for high quality work;
The women he loved received
Laundry lists, fraudulent resumes,
And incomprehensible instructions
For building either a boat or an elephant.

ALEX

Since he was born before 1900
And died well into his 90s, Alex,
My mother's friend, must surely have been
Almost the last of Franz Joseph's cavalrymen.
Old and sick, he drew endlessly
Flowers or boats or long moonlit roads
Or the man in the bed next to his.
The tall ghosts with whom he'd riden
Insistently clattered into his dreams
Demanding he join them. His hands
Pained him so he could barely hold a crayon;
I wondered how they could draw so well.
One morning he woke up in uniform
On horseback, holding reins in hands
No longer twisted, and knew that he had died.

FOR SEREDA

Always it happens. Just when no one’s come by for years and I

Think to loose the boat and let it wander where it will

And use the pole for kindling, some soul comes bewildered by.

I find I have employment still.

So very thin this one; a shadow’s shadow, just a  bit more

Then two dark memories and a vow half-taken

Half forsworn; who thought to wake upon some other shore.

No use, I think, asking him to bail.