5396. SEVEN TIMES SEVEN AGAIN

SEVEN TIMES SEVEN AGAIN

I've got 49 things in this whole, wide world,

and I've really only now learned to count : my

kite string sings your watery oasis. The scent of 

pansy on a gay man's coat; lilacs and the rest

of the field. Looking down the awkward bar,

just now I can see twenty hearts. It's fleet-week

again, and I am a dead-man's slave. Outside

McSorley's, these guys in white suits - kids, really -

line up for their beers in a row. The crowd is awesome

deep, everyone clawing for something new. Dress Navies

and Ensign Toms, what care I for anything? Here is

how we do it; on these old east village streets, in these

old east village doorways, at the projects, at the end

of third; anywhere at all seems it will do. I hear, I hear

the echoes too  -  Frank O'Hara and hart crane singing,

together encased yet separated by years. No matter. I

was in love in 1924. I was in love again in 1956.