For the poet Michael Tyrell Who Read Poems With Me Last Night in Iowa

What Was the Poet Doing in Ronkonkoma?

 

 

Death has ten fingers and one face

But why was Michael Tyrell in Ronkonkoma,

And why did he hand me his train stub,

And who talks of that ride

Like some Italian Futurist

Whose dog wiggles at electric lights–

For even the Long Island Rail

Is a miracle, if, for instance

You grew up in Abbasanta

Like Antonio Gramsci, who

Learned to write with twigs.

I only know how the poet got there.

But of the silken puppet–his actuarial angel

I know nothing–like Gramsci

I’ve got a slip of paper in my pocket

That whispers of cold becoming

In a town of industries and street lights.