“Tea Party”
If I look very firm,
bad people will go. If I smile
as blandly and kindly
as I can, good people will
acknowledge me, clasp
my shoulder. Then the good people
will chase the bad people
into the desert beyond
the border, where they will die.
(Their ghosts will gaze longingly
at us, gnashing their teeth.)
Or we shall wall them off
in their bad places. Meanwhile, there’s so much
to read! To discover at once
the limitlessness of fear and
the will. And so much art
to be made, so many messages to send!
Some wear the tricorne hat and blue
coat of virtue. (They’re a bit crazy.)
The Joker’s rotting face was due
to his not being really white. You understand.
And suddenly so much history,
lurking at our fingertips! Hitler, the Rothschilds!
Knowledge is power. Untaxed, we shall live
in castles on prairies
with Christ in every heart, and the great and just
avenging missiles flying.
I may not live to see it but my fetus will.
View of the Water
Beyond the retaining wall,
the sea is unusually clear:
outlines of buildings, stubs of docks,
the unrecoverable streets
all visible from here,
colloidal bubbles rising here and there.
It looks like the clients
have decided to take three apartments
on the fiftieth floor, remove walls. The agent
stands with them on a balcony.
The air is fresh, the mood
relaxed in the way that comes
when drawbacks and their costs have been agreed
and postures put aside,
and parties are briefly one
in their reluctance to proceed
with the day. The agent sinks
into his native observant heaviness.
He could have asked for more.
They aren’t suffering.
The wife seems marginally
more alert. Both are on something,
and with those veils they wear
can hardly be told apart.
Not merely rich but connected, they travel,
know other cities. He wonders whether
they see him as part of local color
and how they’d react to what he lives in.
The husband checks the time in his brain.
The realtor straightens, looks down
at puddles beneath
the wall and scuttling
people the size of rats the size of men.
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