Listen to Lucie Brock-Broido read this poem.
The sleight white poet would assume non-human forms, homely
Grampus fish, a wahoo, nut-hatch, nit.
He had no romance except
Remorse, which he used like fuzzy algebra. By pouring bluing
On black porous coal, he crystallized, pronounced himself almost
A sorcerer. He had an empty cloakroom
In the chest of him.
All the lost wool scarves
Of all the world collected there & muffled him
With wool.
He imagined he could move a broom if he so desired, just by wishing
It. If he spoke of ghosts, he thought he could make of art vast
Tattersall & spreading wings.
When they found him in the nurse’s office,
He was awkward as a charlatan, slightly queasy
In an emperor’s real clothes.
The Thermos in his lunchbox was perpetually broken and he lied.
The small world smelled of oil of peppermint, for a broken spell.
Everything is plaid
And sour in oblivion, as well.
