Full Tilt

        Disturbing news emanates from the wind tunnel:
	He’s gone, who never lacked for champions,
	killed by daylight saving time, or a terrible syllabus accident.
	 
        The dead leaves, maple or aspen, are a sign of life.
	Let’s leave things as they are,
	drying in the sun, soaking up the sweetness
	that’s in everything.
	 
        This is what taking chances was all about, and look where it’s led us!
	To the root, it seems of human misery.
	Misery, get up, get down.  Your hair is a mess
	and your dress a fright.  Yet your curdled armpits
	speak to us.  Sometimes it’s better to have nothing to say
	when you are telling about what happened today.
	It was so much, after all, that morbid agenda.
	 
        Now, why not investigate the way
	all this can end up being pretty?  Not just the whore
	who waits on the corner till the last sliver of taxi is gone,
	to be repackaged next night in a department store window
	so you can pretend you bought it?  I’m up here, Louise,
	we’re all up here, waiting for you to step up to home plate
	and bat us a cool one.  Oh, but
	I was supposed to be in the station an hour ago.
	That’s the way it gets illustrated:
	the four of you in Cincinnati, waving across the plain
	to us, the lemon in hot pursuit, leading to student unrest.
	 
        We don’t have to worry about that now—
	tomorrow or the day after will be just as good.
	The fraternity has already waited an eternity.  Only coaxing the stars
	out could produce the fruit you need to have in your stockinh or shorts.
	 
        Then this scene too faded away like a fable.