Sunlight slips into a stream and floats away
  Eddied along to bouncing buoys adrift
The sky wisping flicks feathers suspended distilling
  My hesitant sleep with you besides me as
Ship's wails waken us today late in December
  As over reddened roofs
And the one black paint brush poplar
  The white steam rising in stealthy puffs
From the house-hidden railway, a tired
  Geyser emptying in a land of lava
But white can still be whiter for now
  The dun air begins its jig with specks that revolve
Like bacteria beneath a lens; this is the first snow,
  A new uphlolstery on roof and garden
Redefying, underlying the day
  As below cars turn animal, moving slowly
In snow coats like old bears.
  Nothing alive in these streets in this
Unwordly cold except the lost
  Wisps of steam from the gratings of sewers.
With you a snatched half hour of self indulgence
  Is an intercalary day.
Sweet, my love you are not in the wind
  I need your company on life's excursion
And I feel a certain pleasurable nostalgia
  In thinking of you back then as you
Threaded your way through vulcanite tables
  To a mutually arranged rendevous
Amomg other beauties who wore feathers in their hats and
            halos
  Of fluttering veils
And those bald at-thirty English men
  With polished pates
Who drown out reason and the senses.
How I enjoy this bout of cynical indulgence
  Of glittering and hard-boiled make believe.
Cynicism is a is an over statement
  But an overstaement is something to acheive.