Poems

A PINWHEEL
for Josef Brodsky

In his luggage X had stowed a green
Bronze arrowhead. The thing
Came from Armenia, Persian, he said.
Successive satraps in its time
Had all the best Armenian horses herded
South to the Persian king,
Rugs, tubs of turpentine, oil in jars,
Boys tactfully picked -

                  On the mantlepiece
Y had a stemmed
Wooden cup from Crete. A convict
Made it. You might think
Fingernails not a knife had oddly
Whittled its
...