I
And all these are fictions too,
In rolls of film, tuberculosis gray.
We recount and recall as if we were madmen,
Locked away in dresser drawers and folio bins,
Our black ink (-stained fingers) running down
these pale passages-
Waistcoats deep in the black soil,
Stroking our egos and straining our necks
To fashion our tongues as red neckties,
All to the rhythm of the doldrums.
II
In this city of poets and artisans,
I was but a fishmonger:
Selling cheek and tail from the daily catch,
Pulling my pushcart by and down the alleyways;
Caught against the current of the hungry crowd.
And there among the refuse I