So much happiness! It seems
everything I touch shines back, all smiles.
Sadness, that old sot, has packed his bags;

Could it be that Yeats was right?
This digital shorthand that will shake
the whole world up as the millennium ends

The sea churns up a ghost of the Elizabeth,
sunk here in 1850, with the woman
who thought herself half-man when she learned Latin

Subject and maker shed their names, and here
the Met displays that multinominal picture
on a brochure: self-portrait of the artist,

What else is there to do but watch carefully for any noticeable
   movement by a statue
of a past hero,

It was as though the very day itself was wearing a see-through
   blouse weeks before
a mastectomy,

Someone slips by you in the corridor of a crowded train, a
stranger making his way
   to the bar,

Today it’s the blimp over Manhattan,
in search of some unnamed event. Drowsy,
gaudy, lazy, almost sexual, its beauty

Oh to be telephoned late at night by a stranger whose voice
projects nothing but bright concern, nothing intimate
between you except a common regard for the hour

So many channels to choose from. Somewhere
in the high numbers blockheads trash-talk
during recess in the blue playground near school.