SPLENDENT

Opening one eye, Jerome sees that someone --
Probably Brigid -- has drawn a halo over his head.
It shines so that he cannot possibly sleep
No more can the others huddled against the cold
On the Seventh Avenue grating. The halo
Shifts colors as he watches it, never the same
For more than a few seconds. He lifts one finger,
Planning to undraw it but hesitates.
Finally, he adds triangle ears, a few whiskers,
Narrow eyes and an odd shape apparently meant
To include the nose and mouth, It lacks something;
One of the others offers an expiring cigarette
Which fits the mouth perfectly. The men
Pull the smoke around them and wait
For sleep to find them again.

PROFESSOR

He always stood
Braced to sustain
The weight of all he knew.
His voice rasped, hoarse
From raw certainty.
He knew the answer
To all our questions
And to questions
We didn’t know to ask.
I've forgotten most
Of what he taught
But at need I still
Can stand as he did
My eyes glittering;
I can speak with his rasp
As if bored beyond words
From always being right.

FAMILY, REVISED

There seemed no end to my mother’s family

She’d casually mention some uncle

Of whom I’d never heard as if from always

He and I had known each other’s secrets.

Mention a place, no matter how obscure,

And some cousin had colonized it.

All her childhood summers had been spent

Among relatives whom now she rarely saw

Yet all their doings were known to her.

Perhaps she had a mystic link

Running back to the 1930s: Lillian’s son

Will leave New York to study in Chicago;

Give Menachem another daughters

So someone can be there to greet him.

NOT FAR FROM SNEDIKER AVENUE

My father's cat once found
An old halo, one of those Brigid
Used to impatiently draw
On the air with a long finger
And then hang over her head

NIGHT WORK

In your dream a car rolls up;
You enter and are driven
Into another dream.
Where you're not the star -- are,
In fact, simply staffage, employed
To put things in scale
And liven the background.
About five a.m. you're paid
In what looks like cabbage leaves.
The same car takes you back
But your dream has its lights off
And every door is locked.

CRITICISM

I was writing a poem to my mistress' eyebrows

When a cat, resting in the third stanza

In the shade of a hemistich, said

"You have no mistress and if you did,

She would like as not have no eyebrows."

found

"a cartilaginous fish,

two feet in length,

and of somewhat

elongated 

and hake-like form"

arrives in chapter 14

and drops its card:

Chimæra monstrosa

but must make way

for a ringworm cure