Richard Strauss, my hero, here you are
finally letting go of both sword and breast,
and there you are escaping from our bleeding world

I’m singing a song for the romeos
I wore for ten years on my front stoop in the North Side,
and for the fat belly I carried

These strawberries announce desire like roosters,
Their reveille lasting till well past noon.
No mouth domesticates their primal sirens,

In my arms, lilacs like a former lover—
no heartbeat, no elevator.
The garden pantomimes its tactics. Now

Not the cricket, but the cat
on the hearth, shining
household god of your scattered clan,

on which the lunar spring descends‚
blanching every shard with halo splendor,
chips of broken cones, sheen

Only if I move my arm a certain way,
it comes back.
Or the way the light bends in the trees

It is not this world, then, to blame, with its red
and blue stars, yellow pears, green apples
that carry a scent which can move you to tears.

Stopless wind, here are the columbine seeds I have
collected. What we would do with them is
different. Though both your trick and mine flowers blue

You can still bear them in that phase, the north and
south laid up against each other, constantly erasing
each minute with each minute.