A French Piano Tuner & a One-Eyed Glassblower Walk into a Bar

Would you rather hear the louche pun drawn
from glory hole, lip wrap or fingering

or hear a tiny hammer striking wire?
Would you rather see the molten birthing glass?

Seat Eros next to Kronos, for the banter. I heard
she’s yet unplowed — I heard your quiver dangled down —

I heard you dwell in borrowed forms — love’s nothing
but glimmer-to-wither, dawn’s fireflies expired.

In this place we sift & bounce the words like dice
thrice dip a pipe into the magma, o my stars.

Lear & Gloucester walk into a bar
debating again the color of bluffs or moors

or cormorants: like craquelure like damp tea leaf
driftwood no, peat steam no, brined sand-apple ink

Were all your letters in fact suns?
Forgotten, after all that trouble —

Are those bellows blowing some?
A field of broken bottles, fragments blue.

A tune invented to divert a girl.
Source: Poetry (April 2017)