Why I hate to be up in the air,
dangling in a car on a wire strung between two alps
above the village of Chamonix,

Displayed in the coin shop window 
below the Spanish doubloons and Flemish guilders, 
in a row of talismans on felt cushions, 

I know this really isn’t Spain. But still,
You’d think I’d find my father here, his lips
On every cup. You’d think the holly bush

Afterwards I said the palm tree was like a snake
coiling around the delicate outdoor bannister
but Janette said like a swan courting a swan.

Never was there a time when I did not lead him,
when I did not feel his hand upon my shoulder.

Never was there a time I was not his eyes

My poems, if poems
other than casual
entrances into systems, are

 How could I not have taken him home:
his eyes shone a gentian blue,
his name was Jesus, and I found him alone

On the way to Mass, by chance,
I spotted you on the boulevard at a café
with your wife and her mother. 

A thin gold catch like a bee’s stinger—
    but there are no bees in winter—
lost from a necklace of honey-colored beads,

Now LeRoy on the kill room floor
Was almost larger than life.
Mondays the green fatigues he wore