POEMS
HOPE
To prefer the nest in the linden
By Apartment Eleven, the Shoreham
Arms, to Apartment Eleven
Would
be
childish. But we are children.
If
the squirrel's nest has no doorman
To help us out of the taxi, up the tree,
Still, even the Shoreham has no squirrel
To meet us with blazing eyes, the sound of rocks knocked
together,
At the glass door under the marquee.
At two
in
the morning
Of Christmas, there
is
a man at the glass
Door, a man inside the bronze
Elevator. We get off at four,
Walk up the corridor, unlock the door,
And go down stone steps, past a statue,
To the nest where the father squirrel, and the mother squirrel,
and the baby squirrel
Would live, if the baby squirrel could have
his
way.
Just now he has his way.
Curled round and round in his sleigh
Bed, the child of the apartment
Sleeps, guarded by a lion six feet long.
And, too,
The parents of the apartment fight like lions.
Between us, we are almost twelve feet long.
