@3"With all tenderness and affection" —from J. Brodsky to M. Harper; inscribed in@1 Less than One: Selected Essays, @3October 12, 1988@1 Signature in a paperback arresting your copious annotations on "September 1, 1939" (exegetical in the extreme) extreme unction of the heart such lucid heartwork without translation bright bed and breakfast in macabre Providence very unPoelike for I have read your EnglishAmerican (as you read your RussianSoviet) to a vast audience of scientists in the graduated labs of Barus & Holly a valiant pant across participles the psychic hum of all lingua you intuited "for language is the only homeland" metaphysician of this psychograph an interrogation sutures of blood and song your generous taxonomies in cavernous secret vena cava First Published in @3The Kenyon Review@1, Volume 23 #2 (Spring 2001). www.kenyonreview.org/roth | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...CONTRA MORTEM: THE FALL by HAYDEN CARRUTH INDEPENDENCE DAY, 1956, A FAIRY TALE by JAMES GALVIN TO THE MEMORY OF INEZ MILHOLLAND by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON DAT GAL O' MINE by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY: DIPPOLD THE OPTICIAN by EDGAR LEE MASTERS |