The Albatross
When I know you are coming home
I put on this necklace:
glass beads on a silken thread, . . .
When I know you are coming home
I put on this necklace:
glass beads on a silken thread, . . .
Be perfect, make it otherwise.
Yesterday is torn in shreds.
Lightning’s thousand sulfur eyes . . .
The Devil’s tour of hell did not include
a factory line where molten lead
spilled into mouths held wide, . . .
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were—I have not seen
As others saw—I could not bring
. . .
The letters of the Jews as strict as flames
Or little terrible flowers lean
Stubbornly upwards through the perfect ages, . . .
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess . . .
We were dancing—it must have
been a foxtrot or a waltz,
something romantic but . . .
Deep in a vale, a stranger now to arms,
Too poor to shine in courts, too proud to beg,
He, who once warred on Saratoga’s plains, . . .
Hopper never painted this, but here
on a snaky path his vision lingers:
. . .
“Oh where are you going with your love-locks flowing
On the west wind blowing along this valley track?”
“The downhill path is easy, come with me an it please ye, . . .