a LEX cArt7

once
you were a democrat in
a gray shirt

oh exalted. oh standing sideways while
the windows opened
and telling us about locking

a car. a block of ice. things you may

have never sung or
poster board along the bedroom wall.

"this newspaper clipping-

it is
about myself and oh we
had wonderful

times when in brooklyn or long island all the big irish families laughed
heartily

because oh you
know how being
tragic is wonderful
for laughter-

and oh yes they put too many 'l's in my last name."

we shut
the window.
the rain was
coming in.
it was gray rain,
red-striped

he sat on the radiator and whistled a jazz riff that he knew since littleness and
that blue-blooded peasant folk stirred
as all the capitalization
reduced in cycling melodies-
notes-on-a-scale

four
two
one-

"yes. there are many ways to love-me-
but only one in which
I shall let

you"