James, I could be dead too—we each chose
         to come up to earth

The moon is sick. I fear she’ll die
from lack of love, from poverty
and homelessness, lost in the sky,

What they had for ideals
must persist in the taut set
of that rearing horse's head,

Flecked on a layer of mortar on the pillbox lid,
the tiles pieced together by some kindred myopic
have caught this much of Tuscany: hills worn down

Now I am flying a land
compressed below me, a realm,
I alight and descend to:
Long Island as it was in the cold

It rested on dried sea-hair matting the rocks.
Its mouth a gash of deep disapproval. It stared and stared,
A clouded celluloid look, a carved stillness

The suddenly bought land
Was stilled in its habits. Indians
Too light-fingered for events

You laugh when I tell you, but it is truth.
Countless physicians have affirmed it, according
to their various specialties. The oral surgeon,

We hiked up a canyon in the cold summer rain.
It was late in the day and on the mountain
across the canyon there was a section of

For the base I prefer a paste of unscented soap, egg white, & glue or gelatin, often peroxide—
never, as do some of my competitors, chewed muslin strips or (loathsome!) bits of animal tissue!
Though receiving but five dollars each night at the lyceum (a dollar at home),