Your Name Here: Poems Read Online Free Page B

with the relaxed, suburban name,
    remembering how trees were green there,
    greener than a sudden embarrassed lawn in April.
    How we would like to live there,
    and not in a different life, either. We sweltered
    along in our union suits, past signs marked “Answer”
    and “Repent,” and tried both, and other things.
    Then—surprise! Velvet daylight
    came along to back us up, providing the courage
    that was always ours, had we but
    known how to access it downstairs.
    We used to crawl to so many events together: a symphony
    of hogs in a lilac tree, and other, possibly more splendid,
    things until the eyelid withdrew.
    Now I can sample your shorts.
    So much more is there for us now—
    runnels that threaten to drown the indifferent one
    who slicks his toe in them.
    Much, much more light.
    To whose office shall we go tomorrow?
    I’d like to hear the new recording of clavier
    variations. Oh, help us someone!
    Put out the night and the fire, whose backdraft
    is even now humming her old song of antipathies.

FULL TILT
    Disturbing news emanates from the wind tunnel:
    He’s gone, who never lacked for champions,
    killed by daylight saving time, or a terrible syllabus accident.
    The dead leaves, maple or aspen, are a sign of life.
    Let’s leave things as they are,
    drying in the sun, soaking up the sweetness
    that’s in everything.
    This is what taking chances was all about, and look where it’s led us!
    To the root, it seems of human misery.
    Misery, get up, get down. Your hair is a mess
    and your dress a fright. Yet your curdled armpits
    speak to us. Sometimes it’s better to have nothing to say
    when you are telling about what happened today.
    It was so much, after all, that morbid agenda.
    Now, why not investigate the way
    all this can end up being pretty? Not just the whore
    who waits on the corner till the last sliver of taxi is gone,
    to be repackaged next night in a department store window
    so you can pretend you bought it? I’m up here, Louise,
    we’re all up here, waiting for you to step up to home plate
    and bat us a cool one. Oh, but
    I was supposed to be in the station an hour ago.
    That’s the way it gets illustrated:
    the four of you in Cincinnati, waving across the plain
    to us, the lemon in hot pursuit, leading to student unrest.
    We don’t have to worry about that now—
    tomorrow or the day after will be just as good.
    The fraternity has already waited an eternity. Only coaxing the stars
    out could produce the fruit you need to have in your stocking or shorts.
    Then this scene too faded away like a fable.

THE FILE ON THELMA JORDAN
    Coldly, we put away the cabin flatware.
    Tomorrow, a transport strike. Damaged vacations will result.
    What the fuck, we’re already in one and have somehow
    got to make it what with the living, you know,
    the sport and recreation around. Pious reflexes too.
    So now about the apple? You know, what about it?
    Vague chintzes all around, her hair caught in the door.
    It seemed time when the bus came for Jacques in Vienna
    that the other Boston terriers would be having their day too,
    but no such luck—the sapphire eyes of one, confused,
    were just about it. You could go away, too.
    A poseur held up a scroll which, predictably, cascaded to the floor.
    Something about an annual charity bazaar. We’d forgotten
    it again, in the garden, this year. Why must things emerge
    before you’ve finished wisecracking about them. What
    does it all mean? In what rut were you born? I’ve got to
    fix the baby’s things. I’m on my way to the garret. Don’t come.
    I assure you everything is under control. It’s of no importance.
    Stop it. I said it’s not that important. What’s not important?
    What couldn’t be under the blue sails dripping
    as they develop, develop their theories about us,
    haunting the ether with memories of clay? We haven’t a stitch
    to wear. Rumson’s is having a sale. I thought I’d
    got out of that one. Oh no? A car is having its way with her,
    carrying us