It is hard to think of the people of Thebes
as being fortunate (so much time has gone by),
but they possessed a machine of exact measure:

Into his kit when sent to the front he had tucked 
his black three-piece suit and through night 
after night of the frightful bombing, which

Discretion is the very soul of your pants pocket:
first, because your pocket hides whatever you put in it,

The haystack’s painting hangs in the Met;
the painting of the haystack, that is,
the one by Monet, not by van Gogh,

In the moment just before the music scares
the machinery whispers to itself inside
its mild, black box, until, with an indrawn breach,

Strings violin-taut at the knees and elbows,
his heavy head drawn back, the dreaming child
sleepwalks down the ancient basement stairs,

I wake up mornings snug in my bed-puppet.
Not the liveliest in my repertoire,
but wait, it gets better: next is my pants-puppet,

Now is my turn to speak, if I
can claim it, tipping myself forward,
letting my tongue fall with a soft,
an inward, an almost inaudible click.

Catch! It’s a quarter, right? You got it? Good.
Now, pinch the flat between your first two fingers,
press hard against the milling with your thumb,

This is a city of bridges,
though the water has mostly fled;
a city of ambitious span