Classic Poem

After the bath she touched her hair
with Orange Leaf and smiled.

“Henry is gone. Who are you?”

Fumous ashwood violins
all night made bright da capo
constant as specific gravity.
So the umbrellas were put away.
We were together on yachts and beaches,
breakfasts on the ocean,
taxis through the Brandenburger Tor.

“Tell me, who are you?”

I am son
of a Hungarian peasant
who fled military service
where the sheep graze
under the Carpathians
and the cheese hangs on the rack
and black bread and potato soup
was the family meal

who came to America
to a steel mill
and a single room
in a boarding house

he who lost
his father's simple power
to touch and smell,
untouched by philosophy. . .
the unexpugnable
integrity of a heifer
licking its nose. . . .
forever lost forever lost.