Variation

Half-ended melodies are purer.

To no longer perform in broad daylight,

the apple’s a radish for it,

the winter chill a living thing.

But take your brother into later learning:

Let the girls who will smell the buried cloves there.

So I am only beginning to learn what I from time to time forget.

But throw away these childish things!

Barney’s coffin disappeared,

and luckily you said the right thing

for the sky mentioned for the last time.

The little master of small talk

is really the seducer of your every move,

taking you into his confidence the way a cat his mouse.

And still young Lycidas cannot express himself fully.

And: “Everyone is the same,”

even down to his jockey shorts, dolce far niente, as they say.

Source: Portrait and Dream: New and Selected Poems (Coffee House Press, 2009)