What nursery rhyme was born
from the black death of the middle ages?
The four voices of a barbershop quartet rise
over the empty beach. The water
gray-blue and inarticulate as the sky above it,
the kingdom of dough shops and body jewelry.
I’m singing something in the replaced company
of the Song of Solomon, organizing the idea
of an egg and a slice of ham while outside the window
nothing is debating how well it fell asleep
or what ended the Patriots game—the soul
like a single flower waiting to be picked—
the soul like a single beloved in a movie theater—
at some distance I see you, your eyes
two hounds, your lips two mottled oysters
against my tongue—and every white numbered balcony
looks at us through its sliding doors. You stand on a carpet
by a pair of chairs reflecting terrible impartial patterns
on impartial patterns—something diluted and wrung
from the idea of Africa, but pitted again
against this shore, now a hell of shapes, some encased in plastic
and imported cheap wood—the smell of salt mingling
with the smell of continental breakfasts
and Solomon’s concubine watching the last evening
meal of the season at a restaurant with chicken fettuccine photographs
curling on the wall—the vast empty bars
and the gas fires with hollow metal logs
casting shadows on the silverware wrapped like dope in heavy brown napkins—
I am your eyes and ears in the world, your sister, your mate.
I’m floating over an American flag tangled on the pole,
now entering a painting of a lighthouse
and allowing its mass-produced iconic sadness to lay
just a little left of my heart,
my heart which is too full of apples and wind
and epiphany
and you.
Reading the Song of Solomon at Hampton Beach
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