for Ms. Sidney Rosenthal
The box must be built
three degrees of separation
around your target,
to whom your assistant
will speak of panopticon
and games. Go then
to that place
of the afflicted and damned.
His home will be there:
he holds hands
with those you loathe
(Was that you, straight-maned Aspasia,
camera at the ready,
when the shadow people
flitted past your subject?
Did you see them as he traced the names
of flowers his mother grew,
near your vast map with its
keyhole-shaped route
outlined in the window
of the still-gutted
office beneath the parking garage?)
Three years later
some tape remains
tacking a scrap of paper
to the glass, the only trace
left at Golden Gate and Larkin.
Now let him leave
your cupped hand
to dart about and shine that goddess light
throughout the inside
of a hollow marble bust
of Eros. Be advised
he remembers well the ride you took him on,
and could to this day remind you
what the two of you talked about.
You may just want to button him up
and never let him out.
The box must be built
three degrees of separation
around your target,
to whom your assistant
will speak of panopticon
and games. Go then
to that place
of the afflicted and damned.
His home will be there:
he holds hands
with those you loathe
(Was that you, straight-maned Aspasia,
camera at the ready,
when the shadow people
flitted past your subject?
Did you see them as he traced the names
of flowers his mother grew,
near your vast map with its
keyhole-shaped route
outlined in the window
of the still-gutted
office beneath the parking garage?)
Three years later
some tape remains
tacking a scrap of paper
to the glass, the only trace
left at Golden Gate and Larkin.
Now let him leave
your cupped hand
to dart about and shine that goddess light
throughout the inside
of a hollow marble bust
of Eros. Be advised
he remembers well the ride you took him on,
and could to this day remind you
what the two of you talked about.
You may just want to button him up
and never let him out.
