BENIGN SPECTACLES
Those benign spectacles of the Franklin Bridge
were long frozen over.
Inside & outside were
captured in a mickle mirror (garage
at the edge of Ferrara). It wasn’t a map
of America, so much;
only Hobo’s tender clutch
(Falstaff) of Henry’s hand (old chap).
He wants to show you something. Opens
one puffy palm, and there
tattooed in coppery-red scar
– soft oval eye, mandorla lens.
America sleeps in her own green fields.
Feminine Hamlet croons
to her, lit by Hobo-moons...
Turn back to thy La Paix, Ophelia.
That Egyptian Art-Deco monolith
of Roger, stepping off
the cliff – out of his skiff
into a void of air, the whole dream-myth...
– & it was underfoot all the time.
Like a grail-dish, or agate
eye; a lamp on a frigate
or arc of a torch, Lazarus-rhyme
or Jonah-wing. The harbor’s safety-net
for flowery Juliet –
buoyant, incarnate
Normandie (gilding Henry’s Mayflower signet).
2.26.19
