Aberration
(The Hubble Space Telescope before repair)

The way they tell it
All the stars have wings
The sky so full of wings
There is no sky
And just for a moment
You forget
The error and the crimped
Paths of light
And you see it
The immense migration
And you hear the rush
The beating

—Rebecca Elson

Concord Hymn

Your joke
Is like a lake
That lies there without any thought
And sees
Dead seas
The birds fly
Around there
Bewildered by its blue without any thought of water
Without any thought
Of water.

--Jack Spicer

Gamin

All the roofs are wet

and underneath smoke

that piles softly in

streets, tongues are

on top of each other

mulling over the night.
We lay against each other

like banks of violets

while the slate slips

off the roof into the

garden of the old lady

next door. She is my
enemy. She hates cats

airplanes and my self

as if we were memories

of war. Bah! When you

are close I thumb my

nose at her and laugh.

—Frank O'Hara