I'll never be as handsome as my father,
singing Vivaldi, when he's seventy-five,
beneath gold domes or strolling by the water.

Hudsons and Studebakers ruled the streets, 
a crossing guard and teenagers the pavement 
when I was eight. But that was an improvement 

                                   They must not settle, the façade
shall revert to the stones.

 Tomorrow, underneath earth, again (I have foundered,
coursed) the colter, as you merge with the body of the day,
                                                           props its elbows

Between us,
I have seen the air like, to the haphazard foot, the heat
of the motion of the sun.

Edgar Pesach, the obituary writer, is on the roof of the Lincoln Plaza
Apartments. It is a deep autumn Sukkoth night.
The Philharmonic plays tonight—Boccherini, or Brahms?

We look at each other and are sad.
There’s a pear tree beside you,
(in fact you’re surrounded by fruit trees—

The valley otherwise
charred, this glade is
old-growth miracle.

This is what comes of a Lammas Eve, tho I did not think of that at all this
year until I had awakend at two in the night with the lines “My mother
would be a falconress.

The baby sings in her high chair
at the banquet.

I know most people at this table,
but not everyone. The keynote speaker talks
about how to make beauty in today’s world. A woman
we met during cocktails whispers
that she wants a picture of the baby.

Ray would say no.

He thinks he can protect her, but I don’t.