The Question (poem)

                                          (with apologies
                                         to Charley Simic)

Greasy ropes with baby nooses wind
through summer weeds, through sun-bathed words
oiled and obtuse, their bodies portending
some languor perturbed.

Greasy ropes with baby nooses grasp,
and groaning, glide, slide from the hands
that would fondle and dandle, would work them in brass
a mask, soi-disant.

Greasy ropes with baby nooses coil
in ringlets, so this mirror would moan,
a crown writhing and fit for a lonely gargoyle,
loquacious and stoned.

Greasy ropes with baby nooses trap
a spectral light, and shine it upon an alien
land, where anonymous ghosts tramp
a course to my mate.