Professor Palamedes darts down Westow Street.
Nothing explains how he avoids
Colliding with mutton, plastics, pianos.

While the rain comes pouring down,
Chekhov, in his white peaked hunting cap,
And prone beside a rick of hay, surveys

It’ll never be built, that house,
what do you say.

Those only who were bored as Ulysses
Ever came home. The remnant soldiering on
Dwelt on the pet names round their hated seas,

Its blue cathedral is trembling into the marrow
of my mouth. Its sharp houses split open

When I was born, I woke in the bedrooms
of admirals. Now I want a sky so blue
it is arrows. I want to sleep under the jawline

He is strewn around her on the bedroom floor
in yards of sequined silk and padded bras.

     Jimmy was a cowboy
       too small to live;

Fats Domino’s parents each
wear a gold ring—each,
the woman, the man. A slice of hard moon

Rooting in brittle mortar—
gypsum plaster, sand, and water—
bougainvillea grew around the arches,