Such a mating of fate�
The Duino Elegies and your wife
head-to-head
in the same gene pool
the agonies that keep
reinventing themselves, like great artists
set and definite as statues�
no, not going anywhere.
Not even an arm hacked off
to suggest
an obscene gesture
made under thy neighbor's table.

Can't rely on America anymore
hiding in the House That Jack Built
his mother
outliving all her children
living to see her son's picture
torn down and defamed
with the flag of her adopted country,
her hand clenched secretly around France
like the hand of the second lover in the bed,
a Lady Liberty
well beyond spring chicken
and the joys of the voluptuous Madonna

the curve of her hips
loved by every man; and most of all by one

my beautiful
Lizzy, myself, our baby
closed and clogged
in the laudanum of our bliss.