for Nessa

Lean your behind on the departure gate
For to clown out of the wound of separation
With Ali smile and Ali shuffle:
Such was the advice and such was how
We kept each other from feeling low.

What do you make of the Bunny Beds I mean
The Bunny Clubs? Tails
I love you, heads I don't. The dead
Are pure was what my father said
The night he swapped his wife for lead.

I am afraid to ask if they are the shoes
Bought you by your mother yesterday.
FLIGHT 118 TO LONDON: BOARDING NOW.
Come to London: I will, I will.
And the poet's stone fell up the hill.

Is there no end to corridors?
Thank God you did not turn to wave.
They would not allow me on the roof
So right then I took a return coach
Into the darkening city.
Rain and the streets emptied
Of people and you.
What am I to think?
Of the man inside the TV man
Propped on the seat behind

Tell-telling the outside man
To produce The Playboy of the Western World
On an ice rink with an all-negro cast?
Yes and of no and the sky
That holds you now. I doubt

If you love me and...you know
My footwork's not good and my eyes cut bad.