B I L L B E R K S O N
1939-2016
Variation
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To no longer perform in broad daylight,
the apple’s a radish for it,
the winter chill a living thing.
But take your brother into later learning:
Let the girls who will smell the buried cloves there.
So I am only beginning to learn what I from time to time forget.
But throw away these childish things!
Barney’s coffin disappeared,
and luckily you said the right thing
for the sky mentioned for the last time.
The little master of small talk
is really the seducer of your every move,
taking you into his confidence the way a cat his mouse.
And still young Lycidas cannot express himself fully.
And: “Everyone is the same,”
even down to his jockey shorts, dolce far niente, as they say.
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Bill Berkson
from Portrait and Dream: New and Selected Poems. Copyright © 2009 by Bill Berkson
