— for Kenward Elmslie
i don't look like william holden at forty
because the décor is all wrong a picture
Bananas Voulu improperly hung too low
a book opened at random upon a table
continues the poet found an old pot
in the mountains ...
a dead fly also
the lasting mark of an unusual vase
what absent flower prompts a memory?
any flower prompts a memory thus
your practised tread across the blue rug
halting
headed always towards the opened door
beyond which we found love in familiarity
when diana died people cried
people cried when stalin died
conversation can seem trivial when it is not
when elvis died
poetry never ends it follows then the heap
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