Tiny, dark, annoying, air-scribbling, vaguely
Malicious things keep buzzing around him like
Electrons about a nucleus, interstellar debris

I woke up remembered “It is a day”
& went out to make it
                                            be a day

I dreamed of a clipper ship
Gold on blue THE CHASEY ALICE
Until he’d seen which Captain You said

        The havoc-caused
        soul occurs not
        recovers yet the

If the answer were awe, I would be burdened with awe

I needed a long bus ride up-
town like a new hole oh well

I’ve meant to tell you many things about my life,
& every time the moment has conquered me.

We all sensed we were in it, but didn’t know 
who would fund this long a study, what the premise
behind it could be.  

Here is the world, right beside me,
a little garden with a swing,
some dirt and a red shovel,

after Suetonius

Caligula ordered the night city illuminated.
Every stoop, porch, or balcony was a stage.

He made the senators dress as prostitutes—
tight silk skirts, paste-on eyelashes.
Up to a matron to wriggle into a boy’s shorts.

Marcus Severus, one-armed veteran
of our labyrinthine border wars,
had to hobble into the amphitheater
armed with a plume and attack a lion.

A plume! We were fascinated.
We were all players, who was the audience?