After Africa, Surbiton:
An unheated house, and flag-stoned pavements;
No colobus monkeys, no cheetahs scouring the plains.

I smile in the mirror at my teeth—
Which are their usual brown.
My smile is wearing a wreath.

The sky is desert blue,
Like the pool. Secluded.
No swimmers here. No smog—

The face is featureless, 
As though bound in tight gauze, 
And therefore presents a mien 

This is not the Roman Campagna.
Arcadian shepherds are absent.
The myths here are Icelandic sagas

I am straddling Marini’s horse
using the horseman’s cock as my handle
galloping in place until it comes off in my hand.

Of the vastness of clouds
We knew nothing;
We slept in houses underground.

It rises from childhood
like a humpback whale, water
streaming down the grill, 

He assures me that my head “doesn’t look shaved”
when he sees evidence of my late teen unhappiness. 
There are this many heads I want to break with this 

No one but lovers and children tell their dreams:
not fish, nearer fowl, where does that leave me—
bantam in the barnyard, pecking for mash.