The Dream


Once, years after your death, I dreamt
you were alive and that I'd found you
living once more in the old apartment.
But I had taken a woman up there
to make love to in the empty rooms.
I was angry at you who'd borne and loved me
and because of whom I believe in heaven.
I regretted your return from the dead
and said to myself almost bitterly,
"For godsakes, what was the big rush,
couldn't she wait one more day?"

And just so daily somewhere Messiah
is shunned like a beggar at the door because
someone has something he wants to finish
or just something better to do, something
he prefers not to put off forever
--some little pleasure so deeply wished
that Heaven's coming has to seem bad luck
or worse, God's intruding selfishness!

But you always turned Messiah away
with a penny and a cake for his trouble
--because wash had to be done, because
who could let dinner boil over and burn,
because everything had to be festive for
your husband, your daughters, your son.





West Street


Exotic birds of passage, errant bits
of bright nights dropped from heaven to hop
here--in party hairdos at all hours,
in hotpants and minis, and black or white
vinyl half-waders even the wily trout
and wary bass shall find alluring, sexy...

might be models shooting on location
in some slummy industrial setting,
sucking in their cheeks and mugging funky
goofy moody naughty haughty pampered
--one of them now holding half a jelly bun
and slowly eating, then throwing it down...

but these early birds of six and seven,
out to catch the early worms,
are half a dozen hookers working from
a West Street warehouse loading dock
--runaways with razors in the purse,
the missing girls next-door come down

from miserable highs and home to roost.