You and I, when we sleep, we’re like whales
because fish swim out of my mouth
and you dishevel the seaweed.

You acted patiently.
You turned away from the play‚
Which was always beginning;

The salesmen, disguised as befuddled policemen, waveringly surrounded the art collector.
They had driven capably all the way from The Hague to East Harlem.
The owners shrewdly viewed their plight with this distorting but comforting disposition:

Removing my watch, pleased with the morning weather, 
I dove—I would cross the Atlantic by myself Neither she, 
        Nor I, nor Brooklyn minded. 

There is no sun
for it can not be remembered:
only a growing pressure

February on the narrow beach, 3:00
a.m. I set out south. Cape Cod Light
on its crumbling cliff above me turns

Dogs skulk, clouds moil and froth, humans
begin to cook—butter, a blue waver of flame,
chopped onions. A styptic rain stings grit and soot

I don’t care if nobody
under forty can hang a door
properly. I’m six and I’m bored.

And then what? Then I thought of
What I first remembered:
Underneath some porch with Gide.

The Middle Ages had ended
even in the provinces,
but at first no one noticed