I remember staring at a painting above  

My crib: two swans on green water.  But, to me 

Shifting forms only.  It’s hard to see without words.   

The less I talk to people, the less I want to.  

* 

On an all-night car trip, I’m awakened  

By the smell of coffee poured from mother’s thermos  

In the front seat, dark poured into dark.  Later, 

I burst from the theater into sun, and sneeze.   

* 

You have a rich interior life, said the famous poet,  

Then asked for a cigarette.  A certain string  

Of words makes a clack like billiards.  My trunk  

Of ghosts is shaking.  I need a bigger trunk.   

* 

A sigh takes in two times our usual breath.   

Sigh again, sweet angel.  On a pilgrimage to Innisfree  

I swear I saw Yeats, standing on lake water.   

I am a professor of the most useless art.