in love's vernacu lar,
ambered into a paradigm forevermore.
Grief is garbage. Loss,
disorder si lt the fountain at its source.
Think then of fostering transforming earth
as what she is as well ...as what's above her.
Dig deep for what no one but you can find.
Alfred Corn
from
NOTES FROM A CHILD
OF
PARADISE
XXVII.
Walls of the room in the o ld apartment
I rented from an ancient lady cracked
And flaked, it seemed, in the very moment
With steamheat torsions of several extra
Degrees pounded through the dim labyrinth
In my skull and the racked radiators.
On the hour I clubbed myself with cognac
From the flamethrower flask looming nearby.
Mrs. Smith appeared. Rather, twin gold-rimmed
Lenses on a whitehaired crone doll untrimmed
Their fever wicks as she crept in to ask,
"Influenza? My husband died of that,
End of the War. He looked a lot like you."
The door closed on what ought to be panic
On my part; except that I am elsewh ere,
Reliving what will have been happening
These last months in the blackout underground,
Knocking at peepholed doors; which would open.
I thought of you, a continent away.
Who was I? Would you tell me? I heard you say,
