Newton, my mother’s cat
Paul Elouard, a brand of peach
Winter roses, fuschia hair, in a cart
I dreamed of ocean, and of you, lividly
O X or was it X O across a bridge
Bag in hand, what was not the O X now its
Water; where there can be no book or ink
The octopus lively, there I was near to thee
Naked, at this window, we stare out to the arid
This mirror, I’ve left flow, you’ve let, tattooed our bones
There: an anthology of words, delights, haunts, convictions, of transmitted minds
Withheld from a child he often forgets, his first and only inner child
Alone, amazed, he’ll have made his way through it
Waited at two heavy, wooden, doors
Past an old laundry, nowhere and know how, not reminded of Ginsberg’s Kaddish, nor of that laundromat poem
Of any book, of anything he owns and keeps in his room
This traveler could be in downtown Manhattan, or Chicago, Los Angeles
Depending on where you are and how close you are to ocean of your dreams and other little white lies
Not quite a dandelion
Unless; unless, if we accept this as petals accept in sunlight, transfer it telephone, coffee and cake
Made a wheat libation, the fact mine
Questioned his belief in both glass and God, for a cure
He’ll have remarked that there are no longer hoof marks
In nation’s pastures
Their sidewalks
The park rid of those once photographed and similarly remarked
He’ll exclaim history
At the sight of painting
At the sound of symphony, or song
Though, not at a worker’s panting
Well, unless if he’s told to by some authority
Neither has he made his own way
To no one’s dismay
To the clothing racks
To the shelves of books
To the restaurants
He’d received help
At a taxed price, and in time
Will have left infamous city behind
He’d always been headed home, to a red house.
