When we showed up for the reading drunk, John,
We were in celestial form, unmixed
And brimming. Having just decoded

You must be dead at least ten years.
You must have lived an unremarkable life
before that: a teacher, say, of unremarkable

For the sake of argument pretend
we don't know who they are, this couple,
one on either side of a cast-iron tree

"Once More Valuable Than Gold"
—Guidebook to the Wieliczka Royal Salt Mine

         Were we in Grand Rapids,
   at the Amway
Plaza, say, the seventh or eighth person       

By the fifth day of rain
a few had begun to dance,
though not quite properly,

Not the kiss alone
      but an essence of kiss,
its dark matter left undisclosed

I’m dreaming of the dahlias up there on the radiator
starting to grow leaves

That is a pair of white hands I see
floating in the mirror, the fingers on the left
are blunt and rounded, the ones on the right are raised

I’m singing a song for the romeos
I wore for ten years on my front stoop in the North Side,
and for the fat belly I carried

There is just so much feeling left in me for my old ghost
and I will spend it all in one last outburst of charity.