Uptown for freelance techwriting,
then home. The mouse hole at
the stove needs plugging. But first,

The hundred shadows of the evergreens.
The refracted
strands of the ripples:

Sheen on your hair on the back of your book
jacket. Intellect’s steel, perhaps I said.
My friend and teacher until we did not talk,

Afternoon’s hundreds under the Citicorp on the platform-
feverish underworld over the molten core of the world.

And your death taught its debt
who escaped your life?

O Life Life Life
I yelled to the mohel’s knife

Ultimate, white-haired
bandaged at the eyes like judgement
you lie at the hospital stainless faucets and the pipes