TWO POEMS
AMERICAN RHAPSODY
Before warmth and sight and sound are gone,
and sometimes the evening lights spring up, as always, but
not for you and not for me,
before the sky is lost, before the clouds are lost, before
their slow, still shadows are lost from the hills,
Shall we meet at 8 o'clock and kiss and exclaim · and arrange
another meeting as though there were love,
pretend, even alone, we believe the things we say,
laugh along the boulevard as though there could be laughter,
make our plans and nourish hope, pretending, what is the
truth, that we ourselves are fooled?
You can be a princess and I'll be the beggar; no, you can be the
beggar and I'll be king;
you be the mother and go out and beg for food; I'll be a
merchant, the man you approach, a devoted husband,
famous as a host; the merchant can be a jobless clerk
who sleeps on subway platforms then lies dead in
Potter's field; the clerk can be a priest, human, kindly,
one who enjoys a joke; the priest can be a lady in jail
for prostitution and the lady can be a banker who has
his troubles, too;
let the merchant be grieved, let the priest be stirred, let the
banker be moved, let the red squad copper be a patron
of the arts;
you be a rat; I'll be the trap; or we both can be maggots
in the long black box;
murder can be comic and hunger can be kind.
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