KNOW

Since she doesn't exist
The angel Ayin
Cannot answer prayers.
She listens, though,
To all who want
No one to hear.

PREFECT

The prefect's statue does not accept that he is clay
Nor that the state he served fell centuries ago.
He stares back into each face peering at him
In the display case where he keeps his office.
Some day the vandal who chipped his nose
With a stone idly tossed will surely return;
The prefect will arrest him in the name
Of the Empress Regnant Wu Zhao.

AT THE MUSEUM

Henry VIII's dress armor

Is black, with golden details,

And filled with ghosts.

Thomas More looks

Through the eyeholes

Great Wolsey sits at ease

In the expanded belly.

Sometimes, the left hand

Slowly clenches; Cromwell

Is having a bad dream.

The six wives

Lodge in the codpiece

Except for Boleyn

Who sits in the helmet

Arguing with More.

Henry's soul huddles

In the left boot's tip

Wishing the others

Would quiet down

So a man could sleep.

PERFORMANCE

The music strikes up; dancers,

Already on stage are in motion.

They’re just a few at first but,

From the wings come more

And more again until the stage

Cannot hold another. No matter;

A scrim lifts, and there is space

For those coming from everywhere

Rappelling from the rafters, streaming

Down the aisles. The musicians

Put down their instruments to dance;

The music now plays itself. Last of all,

You rise, arms links with yours

And you’re dancing.

                         If this isn't Death

What can it be?

THE RETURN

Grown old, Mr. Hyde finds he misses

Dr. Jekyll. He is not a chemist –

That was Jekyll – but he has the notes

From the original experiments

And signs up for some courses. His wife

(Hyde gave up murdering women years ago

On the advice of his cardiologist) thinks

Jekyll is unlikely to return from wherever

In Hyde he’s been larricking about. Still …

She prepares the guest bedroom

And buys porridge; Hyde hates porridge

But says Jekyll will want it at breakfast.

INCIDENT

Almost featureless, the ghost
Stands by a wall. The rain

Makes people hurry by.
I furtively put in his hand
The memory of a dime
One of the old ones, silver,
With Mercury's head on it
He curls his fingers around it,
Nods and is gone.

CHEAP AT THE PRICE

If this was 1940
I might take a subway --
One of the new IND lines --
And walk a block south
To 24 West 40th Street.
There, I'd ask "Do you have
The Goddess of Time?"
"Certainly," the jeweler would say
"That"ll be one dollar down
And $2.87 a month
For the next ten months."
My grandfather, a watchmaker,
Might have cautioned me
That any watch called

The Goddess of Time
Was no better than it should be
And was not to be trusted.