The only heir, memory cannot bless any new deed
With the marks of management, transported
To newer keys into worldly ends. Even a trusting

The sun was touching the wet black shoulders of olives
in a chipped dish descended from another century
on that day I remember more than half my life ago

Watching a rerun of the movie favorite
Where a dejected naval would-be hero
Hangs himself in a unit of the aquamarine

                                                                                pigs,
and this one pig wallowed in his slough
as the others chewed grass and made pig

The day I met Perry Como
General Mac Arthur had a parade.
I'd been given the afternoon off

Rounding the bend again, bitten mountain,
arid orange clusters are the same.
Past the cemetery, Julia and I claw

I think I know what he would say
about the dream I had last night
in which my nose was lopped off in a sword fight,

He comes to Egypt with the Crusaders. Of all the men
at the inn I'm drawn to him. Is it his eyes?
I ask with mine. He smiles and nods consent.

These are the same stairs, unnoticed, essential,
submerged in shadow bath; and that is the same
queen's-blood carpet, embracing the floor and chairs

Cold starts with the sun gone down
warming up at early dawn

Overcast at break of day