september
Then the flowers became very wild
because it was early September
and they had nothing to lose
they tossed their colors every
which way over the garden wall
splattering the lawn, shoving their
wild orange red rain-disheveled faces
into my window without shame
subway station
The child is speaking to the father
he is looking into the father's eyes
The father doesn't answer
The child is speaking Vietnamese
The father doesn't answer
The child is speaking English
The father doesn't answer
The father is staring at a mosaic in blue and green
and lavender three small ships in harbor
set again and again in the white tiled
beautiful old unrenovated subway
station Clark Street Brooklyn
time
Now time himself the master streamer
grew
by pools and ponds
then strenuously to accommodate the generations
became a sea
in which the fish and thee
my love by dark and night light swim
and nations drown
it's true
Everywhere people love their children
even the father at the railroad station
in Windsor Connecticut
who will appear tomorrow in the morning paper
in drunken sorrow having beaten his baby
to the gasping edge of life
he stands this early afternoon
holding the child in his arms telling her
between kisses here comes the big train
listen to the whistle and now look look
the lady in that window she sees how beautiful
you are she's waving to us