Classic Poem

You write for news and Venetian vellum.

I answer: From the sea today a mystery:
proportion"s carapaced nightmare: lobster.

You write for burnt glass.

I answer: When tides cross San Marco"s cobbles,
bare-shouldered women, bare-shouldered girls,
walk planks to the dark cathedral.

Herr Wilibald, my French mantle greets you!
My plumes and misgivings greet you!
Blue-black near the boiling vat, my carapaced neighbor
greets you! (Since dusk, his thin-stalked eyes, like sunflowers,
have tracked my orbiting candle.)

You write that my altarpiece
cups in its wings our destinies.

I answer: In one-point perspective, all lines converge
in a dot of sun far out on the earth"s horizon.

I answer: Nightfall makes centaurs of the gondoliers.

I answer: Afloat through the inns, a second perspective
transposes the reign of earth and sun, placing us
at the vanishing point.

You write that stubble on the winter fields
supports, through frost, a second field.

I answer: When tides withdraw there are birthmarks
on the cobbles. And on the girls" satin slippers
age-rings of silt.

You have seen, secondhand, the centaurs.

I have seen the lobster redden,
then rise like a sun through the boiling water.

Immortality"s sign? you ask me. That slow-gaited sea change?
That languorous rising?

I have also seen a comet cross the sky.