Desolation Your Inheritance

Here you might come on yourself, a chef

in a minor institution, or a trumpet player gone

out of style, you might notice yourself at a seaside park,

punching the wind, you might think of yourself

as depleted, jostled by indifferent officials,

you might play at reminders, compare yourself to the

frequently

blessed, yet there will come a time

when the development of emergency relations loses

momentum,

when on a personal occasion you do not shine . . .

I wish you would step aside at this moment,

refuse to compare yourself to a prosecutor,

to one who is engaged in a struggle for his rights,

I wish you would sit a while in the grass, experimenting

with a piece of vegetation, I think

it will soon pass, whatever it is,

the day and its henchmen,

the night and its irrepressible spirit,

information about some engagement you didn't recall

will reach you, the absence will prove to be valuable,

there are certain variations,

conspicuous entertainments like brass articles

left on a bench, a summons

coated in pollen, that will sustain you,

bursts of feeling, grandiose rhetorical dawns

and the emptiness will become you, desolation

your inheritance, remarkable to the neighbors, ;

the ones who burned their houses

for insurance, to the converted and abused,

who gather around you, indicating with delicate gestures

the vacant lot where your estate used to be.