In the Public Gardens
Eyes peep out from the night of hiding,
slam shut against the flashbulb sun,
riskily they blink and close like butterflies,
look down as if in shyness,
and stare in all directions like forsythia
* * *
The duckpond is an archipelago of black mud,
the straits between filling from a stingy faucet,
take your time, what’s your hurry, faucet?
and ducks return to the Public Garden
breast first, wings hysterically retro,
to bask in cliques and batches in the moosh.
Duckies! Duckies! quacks a kid.
Yeah, duckies, admits its mother,
And see the doggies runnin in the wata.
Ulmus Atlantica Belgica.
* * *
Cantering in spray two large boys
jowls sopping, loobling about
slurping February puddles
and squirting April on three legs.
They do so like to simultaneously
terrorize the ducks.
And look, a little puppy is a little confused.
Its big white master whistles with hooked pinkies
and puppy bounds a beeline halfway back.
A cop by the old stone bridge,
disadvantaged by the gleaming handcuffs
hanging from his belt
stalwartly attempts a casual air.
Temperature an unreasonably mild 70 degrees.
* * *
Oh come, come one and all, all ye
who trudged on slush, tiptoed black ice
fell into snowbanks in the no-joke Boston meatlocker,
who lay awake in the long nights,
rocking on your backs in blind self-pity:
* * *
And watch a skinny up-and-down fast-walking man
clutching a spooled magazine!
nine yards of businessmen with jackets slung
the boss is taking them to lunch, another miracle!
an old woman in a flowery forgetful flowing shawl
beside a tea crab tree at the point of pink sneezing
singing
Jerusalem! in a pure young alto, Jerusalem!
along shoreline path to Boylston.
Green headed tulip sprouts in grave-shaped plots
squeeze out from their chilly sleeves,
lovers in audacious clothing
lollygag on last year’s lawn.
A stubble face gent on a bench
crosses arms, puffs his cigar-end
and likes how his livingroom is shaping up.