Supine on a gurney below the Acropolis tacked
to the ceiling, my right leg slowly turning
cement, I'm an accidental artifact of Pompeii

Beside my bed the lamplight glows: a glass base
filled with shells containing
news of ocean. Each shell encloses what the sea

The wall is massive, of solid stone, hard, finished;
yet it oozes The wall is smooth, new and old, durable,
and yet it is crannied, and through the mute fault drips

A steep cemetery of a smile,
the last century—what a century!

Oie Cythaera
Land out of which I might never have
Limped into this day which holds me now

An eye for an eye, love
A mouth for a mouth
Next me lie, love

The old woman who sees him sleeps in that house
By his boots she knows him, his long white coat

The bright young bones growing turn like green tendrils

Where there’s no quarrel, but there’s fate
A scream unhurried of music’s choice

But men married in New York or else women
Dominate the pavement from where they stand,