July 4, 2003

On a baked street in the white heat,
His blackness rich and final,
An African sells his leather wares.

An actress—luscious Isabel Rue—
Bolts the screen to kiss him with an
Open mouth. What is the tyranny of this

American blondness calling men out of
Their middle age and longing for the life
That got away?

Above them the heads of the discarded,
Gargoyles on the red brick walls—Tennis Joe
and Fat Luella and Iris with her talking teeth.

Flags droop in the breezeless air.
Those who can patrol the blistered boulevard
With signboards as their shields:

—Rest home equals boiled egg rolled
Along a dirty floor.

—Long live the popping sound of a head
Crushed by a Broadway bus.

In the cool basement of an abandoned church
A woman cries for her deceased.
From the vaulted ceiling a broken clamp lamp stares.

Celeste called this evening. The dull phone
Awoke. Her nonagenarian father has blood
In his urine. Her mother acting dotty in the lobby.

The president in the mounting days of his anger,
The nation counting along with him.

July 2003