What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman1, for I walked
down the sidestreets under the trees with a headache selfconscious
looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went into the neon
fruit supermarket, dreaming of your enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families shopping at night!
Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the avacados, babies in the tomatoes!
--and you Garcia Lorca2, what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking
among the meats in the refridgerator and eyeing the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops?
What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans following you,
and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary fancy
tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy, and never passing the
cashier.
Where were we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour.
Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and
feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade
to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past blue automobiles
in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America
did you have when Charon3 quit poling his ferry and you got out on
a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters
of Lethe4.
1Walt Whitman: (1819-1892) American poet, author of Leaves of Grass 2Garcia Lorca: (1899-1936) Spaish poet and dramatist
3Charon: in Greek mythology, the boatman who ferried the souls of the dead
across the river Styx to Hades
4Lethe: a river in Hades whose waters brought forgetfulness
