2103. PRELIMINARIES OF JILL

PRELIMINARIES OF JILL
I sense I'll get through January OK,
for anyway what it's worth : crenelated
icetops, roofs and gutters, icicle hangings
and that decrepit drugstore awning which
finally collapsed under its load of snow.
Your big box of oranges, some special kind,
flown in from a distant place - Timbuktu or
Samarkand. Delicious you claim to taste and
oh so sweet on the tongue. I'd bet. You yet.
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Disappear me from this absence, make me one
with joy. I life out my hand from the sticky matter
it's been caught in, and realize I'm hindered
by its ooze and weight. Nothing slows down,
except, s0 it's been said - that which slows down.
Make it past the shackles, brother, and you're
free. Free. Free again like that Allman bird
or whatever from way back when - when the rafters
rang with laughter, when the Beacon wasn't peakin'.
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Now like litter after a catfight, dogfight, ticker-tape
parade for vandals and sportsmen and astronauts
both dead and weightless and alive and floating,
I can't figure a thing. Why you're here, and I'm not.
Or vice-versa. For the crowd, swelling and frolicking
all along the sidelines, we are nothing but some geeks
in a car on parade. Go ahead then, convertible girl,
you do your royal wave, and I'll do the gaze.