for Rudy
1.
love saves us from everything, or ought to,
including the conclusions
2.
for this bitter, bitter world, where sleek couples
with apparently perfect little kids
have their sacks pushed to their fine dark cars
as one then another catastrophe proves the peril
3.
and the gulf of wealth, proving the word, spreads
nearly to the unfixed horizon a catastrophe
so purely enormous the poor, the barely okay,
their dignity dour as anything the healthy donate
begin to laugh
4.
this laugh so high, so ever held,
monuments in the capitol crack those little lines, holding
5.
there is no reason to remain alive or is there?
6.
what now, my love?
7.
kiss the kiss of longing is what,
to the end that all that believe in gold, in college
and the good firm and lots of money soon,
before time runs out, may renounce their choice
and see that living on the beaches
with their dirty tides and clotted vistas,
is better than nothing and certainly better
8.
than what we deserve, my darling