Images of Little Compton, Rhode Island
Here the tendons in the swans’ wings stretch,
feel the tautness of their futuristic necks,
imagine their brains’ keyhole accuracy,
envy their infinitely precise desires.
A red-nosed Goodyear zeppelin emerges from the mist
like an ethereal albino whale on drugs.
One wanders around a credible hushed town.
Mosquito hammering through the air
with a horse’s power: there will be no cameramen.
We will swap bodies maybe
giving the old one a shove.
That’s an awful lot of work for you I said
and besides look at your hands,
there are small fires in the palms,
there is smoke squirting from every pore.
O when all is lost,
when we have thrown our shoes in the sea,
when our watches have crawled off into weeds,
our typewriters have finally spelled perhaps
accidentally the unthinkable word,
when the rocks loosen and the sea anemones
welcome us home with their gossamer arms
dropping like a ship from the stars,
what on earth shall we speak or think of,
and who do you think you are?
