FROM SOUTH FERRY, RUNNING NORTH

After the last night has been uncreated again
The unsaying words which made it not be echo
For a moment or two. Stars slowly flicker on;
Feathers conjure themselves into birds;
The dead who'll soon have never died embrace.
The shadow of the Third Avenue El casts
Thirty miles of track and seventeen stations
Before remembering the line's remains
Were hauled off during the Fall of 1956.

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.

PERHAPS

If we can make it across the day

Make it past the smiling priest

Make it past the jade-hilted knife

Whose blade is curved and black

If our tongue speaks no treason

Against the sun then it may be

That night will give us shelter

Wrap us softly in shadows

Put us gently in a drawer

With bright pebbles and feathers

And lost cogs and the things

She means sometime to fix.

MOVING

The last public letter writer
Puts her feathers and inks in a bag
Which she slings over her shoulder.
The table and chair follow her
Since she's too old to carry them.
The cat lingers in the photo
For a few minutes, then comes too.

HAVING BEEN WARNED

Just as  Hannah Moore promised me,

Reading popular fiction debased my taste,

Slackened my intellectual nerve,

Let down my understanding and --

I wonder Hannah knew this –

Setting my fancy loose, sent it gadding

Among low and mean objects

Where, I have to admit the life

Seems to suit it. It seldom comes home

(My taste, my intellectual nerve

And my understanding still live with me)

But when it does, it has feathers in its hair

And it always brings presents --

The geisha it found in Montmartre,

The rag and clockwork imagination

Which works well enough in dry weather.

LOVE WHICH HAS NO HAT

In an old French book a man’s love

Takes off its hat to say goodbye;

Why is my love not like that?

I don’t think it’s ever owned a hat

And, if it did, it’s never worn it.

Unkempt, unshaven, stumble-tongued –

It knows nothing of good manners

(I wouldn’t be surprised if it drinks, too)

I could, I suppose, buy my love a hat

A jaunty one, with a tall feather --

But what if it then grew vain

And insisted I rig it out as a musketeer

Complete with cape and high boots

A  tabard and, of course, a musket?

Not even in dreams does wisdom say

Teach your love the use of firearms.