Dennis Barone
WAVE RIDER
secrets of ourselves and
sausage, egg, oil, and
split-level owned private
furniture at once seduced and
remote passport is what the
and I told myself the rules art
and downtown insisted, chosen
and radiant I understood one
point sure of merit shows and
see that contaminated legend and
my hidden village for fifty years
and be careful Coca-Cola exile
and tissue comedy a local
ingredient trying to remember and
love come dinnertime perhaps
and spent the day honest accident
and other problems next door
an overarching philosophy a
different kind of furious a
solid living a key a classic
tale and haunting money
bemused indecision a man like
a buffer a mark of idols and
my work continued I spoke of
taxes abroad good health the city
center old laboriousness and sometimes
sweaters old tires
powerful men change and
social inertia suddenly I
believed all over this day
beauty and hand in hand
Botticelli shock to cushion
cypresses sepulchers and nostalgia
Dennis Barone is the author of A Field Guide to the Rehearsal. He is the poetry editor for the Wallace Stevens Journal.