This Thing I've Got For Henry James

I ought to write about this thing
I’ve got for Henry James –
though, damn, I’m tired. I didn’t
sleep enough last night,

and surely what’s required in
a tête-à-tête avec le maître
is the energy to meet his endless
scavenging and baby-like

insistence that one lap up
everything one sees – digest it
to the lees – regurgitate the stuff
in filigree into eternity. Semi-

somnolence is dangerous
around subordinately wafting
clauses, streaming through
the air and swallowing one up

assiduously until one forgets
the myriad assumptions
one had brought to the imagining
of what one thought might

constitute a “there”: a favorite
word of his, that “there!” –
fixed to an exclamation point.
Everything so subtly out of joint.

Sucks one right into the maw.

Oughta be a law.





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