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Birdman of Utopia Parkway
a perch more insular than Alcatraz
indeed your meticulous innerscapes
are tiny cells
where the fragmentary chattering of jaded parrots
a splash of color on drab walls
recalls this ghost that guest of the memory’s hospice
who came to nest a moment
& who molted with the photographs
flew the coop & dropped a quill
white as the flotsam of wonder
on the floor
Ubiquitous recluse
you walk without a body
through the missing persons bureau
of your boxes
restless and unsatisfied
looking for clues for skeleton keys
to fit the literate keyholes of your sleep
you move with the whelks
quaint relics of the sea’s insomnia
with tacked-up starmaps
wheeling nowhere, wrinkled and creased
with whispers
You float from room to room
without a name without a number
a wraith who signs no register
an apparition who carries no baggage
save a medici slot machine
a cenotaph of cancelled stamps
a luminescent soap bubble
& a rusted music box
They call to you Joseph
in the bright silence of these arcane coupons
shards of canaries
shed plumage of cutout cockatoos
corked bottles in the lost apothecaries
of consciousness
they call to you from encyclopedias of dream
from tomes of loss
from the other side of silence they call to you
your pasted stars your puzzled stamps
your tucked away & long forgotten toys
How they long to touch you
to fondle your hands that crafted stillness
from the residue of genesis
shaped an echo in shoes & shells & pipes no longer smoked
they call to the calcified starfish
of your fingers, still foraging for shadows
in vanishing dovecotes
they long to uncouple your scissors
cancel your hands
empty them of selection
Come, Joseph
kiss the corks & hoops goodnight
sweet dreams to the ballerinas the feathered pensioners
let Anna Moffo & Hedy Lamarr
tuck your luminous owls over you, Joseph
let Renee Jeanmaire
soften the periwinkle you rest your head on
leave off dreaming they whisper
& go to sleep
the zodiac in the sun box the fossil fern in the analemma
will dream you
the snow soprano in the sand fountain
will dream you always
ditto the doves & butterflies
let trade winds tousle roses in your sleep
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