“From Mohammed, the Servant and Prophet of Allah,
    to Muqavas, Leader of the Copts: There is
safety and security for those believers who

Questioner:      By now, everyone has a grievance
                               honed to a nice point by the abrasions
                               of long acquaintance. Are we stuck?

One’s face in the intaglio’d window:
ghost to pentimento, and back to
ghost. An afterthought on tile,

The stars, invoking the higher gods
of AFIRA and SAG,
will not appear tonight,

Jog around our reservoir of dreams, Jackie,
diamonds dripping from your eyes
as a load of cameleopards trot

In a PBS documentary, from a drawer
the ballerina pulled a love poem
penned by the late choreographer

Afterwards, a would-be picture postcard
Near patches of water her shirt will shed

And there it is all at once a red Russell Stover
Blimp flying north after the plane
That just took off from West Palm Beach

They grew in our backyard, the Bartlett and the Gestler
and though now I know trees aren’t sexual like us,
I didn’t know what sexual meant, I only knew what all five-year-olds knew,

The mind, tossing, tosses out new sounds,
or the same sounds thought different, continually,