Was a treaty drawn without me?
I wake
in a body
of tyranny

in a world of
jello and lead:
everything wobble
or else impassible,
everything touched--
toothbrush sock sandwich bread--
a dread, a weary

and patience?

there is no patience
only
angriest subway
no stops
all stops
cancelled!

Then the night comes down
like the machine that kills cars,
ten-tonning them flat

the bats tangle, panic,
swarm my eyes, I
lose my way on my own street home

and there is no
revolution, no protest, no poem.
Just the intractable stack of stairs
up from the underground
slow by slow,
each and every one.

---

The Visit
for Barbara Myerhoff (1935-1985)

It is 1am when passing headlights
drain my room's dark to white
and then
I see you:
pale glare in the window pane,
pale fingers against the membrane of glass
between us.

What is it you are looking for?

I think through the things of yours
I have touched at the archive,
the boxes of typewritten, handwritten sheaves
and dust--

Yesterday I was
listening to a tape of you teaching when
suddenly
the formal sound folded and
two little boys were
burbling a song with
no particular melody.
I could hear you
laugh and drag the younger one
off for his bath while
the older son kept singing until
finally his father called for
bedtime, but
you all
forgot to stop
the tape recorder.

So that then for
twenty minutes more
I heard only
the hum of your
lamps and furniture
glowing out the windows with
no blinds down yet, the soft cars
shushing the wet street, the
small suburban trees quietly
shuddering.

Could this be
it, this

perfect piece of time
resined accidentally
before
before
before
you lost everything, was
this the sound of your
stillness,
the secret unmarked hush
of your love
breathing.