This poet pinned
behind his ’63 Smith Corona
at the art fair; he tilts his hat and waits for you
To come, to ask him to free this poem
not yet written, the one now held hostage
inchoate in the fractal web of ether-
He’ll lure it onto the page with whispers and worn
keys clacking, zing, and
you’ll pay the ransom, let it loose in the world where it isn’t
yet, it will go with you, has been caught
in the net of your dreams now- but
as for him, he stays and
watches the sky and
waits patiently for the inevitable
return of the endless flock of words,
migrating north again in long vees,
honking;
He calls them in one by one, they
surround his head in a cloud of invisible bees, they
clamber up out of the hives but he tamps them
down – not unkindly – while he waits
For others to come by with coins
or teas or stories to trade –
He finally frees them one by one, now strung together like
Spun glass beads around a lonely neck – juniper,
echo, conduit, fairy tale, copper, trolley,
mitochondria, ginger,
melancholy, amber
Words
That have come to us
As if by some prior arrangement, have leapt over
some wrinkled fold in the universe, have caught
a wandering ride on a draft from some butterfly
wing’s from the time before, were called
in for dinner as dusk deepened and settled
in the long grass,
landing among us
like truth
like fireflies,
carrying darkness,
carrying light.
Halfway North 