A Poet's Curse

Lunge for it again! – grab at that pink
coral glow – gelid atmospheric jewel –
try to quote the sky as it proposes
to the city park’s dark filigree of trees –
transgressively – to serve itself up
whole as if it were a mango-colored
shiver-quiver of a beast you had to

swallow quickly – live – before it died –
like lobster Japanese contrive
to eat still pulsing on a plate – though
just as you attempt to force the gate –
reach out a hand to it – it’s faded –
gray-pearled empty air – and lost itself
behind the branches and the cornices –

now grown as black and cold as coal –
the jewel’s been stolen – and the sky
pretends it never knew what frozen
Caribbean pink was – and you’re
stunned, again, by this globe’s
blunt refusal to allow its raptures
adequately to be captured in a verse.



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