The Brooklyn Rail

Making the sign for listening, nodding 
ordinary full speed daylight on the deck 

your Yangtze on Andover, five million
books a week, filthy porcelain coffee cups, 

graveyards of trombones, elephants,
Orion on your lap & Lyra just below 

spread out there nearby the roses. Yes cupping
a hand to your ear, universal, everyone knows

in their midnight rooms reading Poe
on their phones composing Hydra-headed 

pantoums in constant mutation, blooming 
rapidly as a posy, as pansies, as butterfly 

larvae in Chinese brocade. Old believer
in red suspenders, reciting hyper alphabets 

dreaming up harpists, heathens, hells, all 88
recognized constellations, plus several hidden ones 

Canis Minor over the great pyramids at twilight. Now
here you are at play at rest, at last serious & absurd 

aboard the train with Cavafy, Micheline & Keats your
glasses on the kitchen table & the words gone in air 

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