keep to the right rags,
            bones at midnight.  first
     murderer of the world halts.

of this Ithaca sings—

                                                            I want to see the citizen,
                                                            strange or wonderful, in the city.
                                                            I want to give

                                                            the citizen one thing or another decent—
                                                            the fair land.  the land of high renown
                                                            is in murmuring too numerous

                                                            to be mild.  of the west and lofty,
                                                            the world is thoroughly lovely in singing.

she had the method of writing
     from disoccupied signs.

in digital completion she abandoned
            calligraphy
     to the corrosive action of green alias.

the absentminded beggar laughed.

                                                           I suppose it would be
                                                           excellent, no doubt,

                                                           but distress matters.
                                                           exaggeration was a butcher’s son
                                                           wielding nine lives for his fathers one.

                                                            Our Father
                                                            is a forecast of the concentration

                                                            sung by I,
                                                            his mute orderly,
                                                            following from afar.

            this age of man hath the virtue of chameleon...

to change hue at every approach...
            to be merry or mournful chewing reminiscence...
     that agent of a modest score of years

     blows away.

in Ithaca’s hand her favorite blue
            crayon buckles
     as it skates across her sky.

her knees are tucked beneath.
     her hair,

her copper hair is just long enough now
     it streams across the table.

in the circle she traces the line
            of her mother’s smile,
     her father’s forking

legs.  she draws upward
            into her lollipop tree,
     her sun,

and back down
     to her lime-green horizon.