Delmore Has Brought His Dust to Heaven
Alone like a window across
The street from a diner hamburger milkshakes not stirred enough.
Leave tip glorious how they are paid not enough money.
All mad like Medea, and all mad at death pending like a toll-booth charge
175 on the lonely window highway charge too.
Light in the window and window-light
Portraits by Degas, which they never hang in the
Great museums strange-ed like a stuffed turkey last
Sunday morbid crucifixes to adore bizarre.
Bring me the lonely gray stuff I
Am but gray, relentless dust gathering in the kitchen.
Tomorrow we will have a town meeting
And resolve this unfair, sordid thing.
Never mention a rainbow in a Irish-influenced
Poem by Delmore Schwartz.
