When you get to thinking that you’re glass,
And the leper tells you you’re betrayed,
Know there’s good air on the river Oise
And beds for you and both your kids.

The wife who’s managed this far seems
All the warmer and brings no mail. One hour
It rains. You take the green way down to daydream
And hike up your cartoon-tartan sweater.

When the sun blazes down, after rain,
The honeybees don’t buzz, but, rather, ring.
You’ll have them tamed
In a far country when no one knows you’re king

Where horses fatten—crab apples and corn—
And phones light up to name your favorite song.
The flatscreens should have known but never learned.
They wall you in this fortress of your wrong.

A flag falls in the dusk, in air,
Whipped to tatters, extravagant and grim.
Your silent son is everywhere.
It’s he who shatters, that you loved him.