Michael Schiavo – ‘You Seek a Great Fortune’


Michael Schiavo

‘You Seek a Great Fortune’

Letting loose the children to the graveyard, she becomes
A bog filled with mosaic women, tiny-breasted, lithe,
A place to recite the alphabet backwards, forwards — again,

Meaning now a pauper to the Creole at the bottom of the stairs.

Of our scrupulous testing, which never ceases to condemn me:
Is a high song, the chorale majestics of the crossroads
Closed on Sunday, “the good day” to be closed,
Or a page from a burgundy book taken to the Restaurant
Poetry and wolfed, but not the kind you think of, the word uttered “with”
On a stage propped against the leeward side of a hogback.

“The hollyhocks in the bee glade.”  These words.  These words
Descending upon every fatal ear, which is every ear, which is
The most annoying part of all this.  Apologies to our tenants:
We’re making duplicate keys.  Be patient.  You’ll soon be in.

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