340 Poem by RIC BASTASA

you begin your story about the birds
walking on telephone wires
or are they just there holding on
with their lives
intact with the clouds at their
claws and beaks

and then you tell your story
about a man walking on top of the water
and the many ways you can really do
it like some miracles they all remember

jesus!

i cannot be beaten. i write a poem
about a drifter who names his two kids
clouds and fog

i bring a cat for you to see to listen
to its paws

how silent they are.
like a cloud. like a fog on the harbor of the city

this crap about Robert
frost. we know them.

so please do not tell me again that it was you
who walk on top of the water
and i will not tell you about my kind of kid
poetry, cat's paws and harbors and fogs

and the silence in my room that i have chosen
as a delicacy for your
kind of escape, to the windmills, and to Miguel
his pony and his Spanish
prison.