Three Letters

                                                                                                                1     to an old man
In the churning of three days' sickness
saffron bills
of that pretended rich disorder gout, getting cured,
I gouged from this palette
the trace of your emotional hues, greensickness:
idealism to keep the old awake, and waste their faces,
seems wore in the body than my howling ache,
inability to keep myself private; you go out
with those faint lines at the ends of your lips,
your eyes are smoke, not burning now,
you go all weekly, without my cane.
There's something in the guts, too, that makes you cry: let's take a solid
                                                                                    medicine together.

                                                                                                           2.       to a contemporary

I could never live with anyone in 1933 or 1943 -- the oddity of an illusion
                                                                          appearing every decade
and of not wanting what I sense most vividly: yellow gloves, a blue over -
                                                                          cost; chance comradeships --
prefer knowing what ignorant defenses these were for being young,
glamor for poverty and pretense, for dislike of men and self.
Recognizing strength: fear against apathy:
as lying in a ditch, the explosions bracketed
and the third did not come, leaving my full moment outside nothingness;
as seeing that girl no charm unto herself
but wearing some kind of headband, fitting to an old coquette.
Knowledge gives the old pleasures, has surpassed them:
can you top the story of any year I name?

                                                                                                       3             to a boy

Indignity
it's a part of youth; you know how free will changes things
the morning you were prepared for another test -- everybody got a good grade,
and the check didn't come to pay your schoolbills, while you responded
                                                                           hopefully to the weather.
Sure, you've seen my anger out of quarrels
even older adults forced upon me; and the vulgar concerns of families
and our pretensions to art,
maybe our preferences.
We're more than the birds that pick for grain, seeing their colors;
we stay long awake on quiet nights; and we sing in ruins;
or forget the last minutes of those we have loved.  What you shall lose,
let it be largely unhappy.