OVID IN AMERICA
          --Tristia, for G. N.

Moving from winter to winter
Who are you, so far from home?
The suit woven of wool & glade,
Your polished cheek & leathers
Scoured away, as are the letters
On your T-shirt.
                    O           VIDEO,
In this short space of warmth
& light, I’ve watched you pass
Your hand across your face
Again & again, stoking a blue
Furnace until it alone burned,
As wastes flare in the night
Outside city limits, a kind of
Monument to our ingenuities
& unease.
               You were my friend,
My colleague, and could be still,
Until you bend to your task,
Collecting a tribute of burger boxes,
Like 600 deer hearts, opened.
All things broil with an awful begetting.

               We have both seen
The pear tree axed, dismantled,
& the branch broken for the fire
Blossoming again. Try once
More to remember every poem
Is written within this shadow
& all our changes costume,—
Exile, wretch, stranger, wanderer,
                    Pilgrim, luckless man.

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