Pres spoke in a language
“of his own.” What did he say, between the
horn line

What is a verse not to be thought 
in the oval rows of the stadium, where 
crowded 

You have come to the edge in your T-shirt and tennis shoes,
the trail map snapping in the sudden wind, and there,

like nothing you had imagined, nothing

The imagination, improvising, translated burly leather 
into an overcoat of armor, converted brawn to iron. 
For wrinkled folds, die-tooled metal plates 

At first puzzlement, then joy.

My baby in the making—surely my last—
would, like a ferry heading for a wharf,
know what to do along the way.

I’ve been grooming you for years.
                           Now I’m asking you to go

through the gate unafraid

I have been courting sleep
and catering to its taste in nightgowns.

I have poured it heady, vintage wines

Sweat, wicked kissers, in your stark
Hate of the whitewashed day;
By the queen-swarm of a breast

The sun is a drum
                 the moon is a cymbal 
The flow of time is caught in a cup.

If maybe we could form a little group
Say something like Bloomsbury and we all
Could write biographies of each other