Don’t worry, Patricia, 
about being forgotten: 
you have left stray hairs 

It’s getting harder to remember the Thirties. 
Public gestures are so replacing private embraces 
That, thinking back, I can visualize old Cactus Jack 

The Doctor fingers my bruise. 
“Magnificent,” he says, “black 
at the edges and purple 

Perambulations in the dawn 
Through long cold silent empty streets 
Bring him to the frozen playground 

The illusion of total competence traps 
Drunks and other scientists trying 
Any old bottle that catches their eye. 

Walking the streets of the city, sitting in a bar. 
Sometimes I take delight in the things I see; 
Sometimes I hardly notice what things are: 

Not his body, bulkier in a tuxedo,
Nor he, awkwardly standing in a pew 
And wondering with his Connecticut mind,

I sit on a bench eating cherries,
Amazed that I wasn’t cheated,
For the whole bag is ripe and deep red.

Being in Rome, hired to hang around 
a dim little set, 
we film extras are out of the sewers of all creation— 

The day was bright and warm. We went to swim 
Up at the Dolder’s big expensive pool. 
That afternoon we saw a strange old woman