NIGHT OF NAMES

Only this scoured night of names
and my initials my friend
put on the graffiti wall
will not forget you in the Village
the moon may pass by
and unnoticed rain
yet even for a pensive moment
O'Hara, Schuyler, Koch
we know by your still lives
are by the cafe's windowpane
as shadows on great hooks
unloose on injured love
as birds under marble stars
jump over tulip beds
moving next door
in a familiar pattern
shamelessly reify themselves
from many dark phantoms
following an August breeze
here in Manhattan
as if under city lantern light
by the fallen Oak acorns
on tree branches of Central Park
we watermarked poets
on other tongues mingle
with your own marathon voice
in the empty single rooms
full of furtive secrets
two almond eyes opening
think twice
wakened by the sun
by blueprints of your own body
demanding any life signs
along the long silences
of unspeakable loss
by our morning games
unlocks the bocce toss
here in the early chill
covering the fevered blank verse
on sheets of a somnambulist dream
under street lamps
a few gatherers pick up leaves
under pebbles of a century's dust
on the first frost of morning.