ANDRE BRETON'S SIGNATURE

A French critic and my teacher
an attractive woman
from the Sorbonne
compared my poetry
to Andre Breton
when I was a freshman
in a class of graduate students
and not knowing Breton
ran to a bookstore
along the Seine out of breath
to remember her words
as a celebrating priest,
visiting professor
and gardener from Boston
Father Adrian
I met at a recital previously
who also delighted
by implanted languages
having been to the holy land
like me who knew
Hebrew, Aramaic, Ethiopic
Latin and Greek and Ugaritic
whom I had spoken to
a day before at the library
telling him how
as to a confessor
I always put my journals
in a French writing box
my family had given me
back in the States
he politely asks me what
writer was looking up
amid the countless shelves
with exotic names
and titles on their covers
when I told him
what the critic related about me
he found a volume
of Breton for me
with a green cover
and because we have
a literary and religious connection
he took me out to lunch
having red wine, a filet of sole
and a bon bon confection.