HARVARD SQUARE, 1990

Thinking of James,
Hawthorne and Emerson
near the Brattle Theater
I go by academic doors
to the Carpenter center
to watch a Fassbinder film
and lecture on postwar
German films,
after a croissant
and latte
walking by an old Quaker
meeting house
as my audio sensibility
quiets down
after "Lola"
I hear street musicians
playing Ives,
it's May Day
with no more snow kisses,
love bounding me along
the cold pantomime face
of a clown
holding his hand
out for money,
my childhood sensitivity
hangs from brass knuckles
from a pawnshop
of a free booting time
as a former runaway
refuses to mimic sleep
takes off his boots
shaking off the ashes
from a Lenten dawn
as a Passover mourning dove
shadows the university
this poet wishes
to throw salt in the air
on the edge of independence
by the Charles River
knowing only my poems
will recognize me
I take out my sax
and blow everyone away.