Sometimes I got so melancholy looking
At the border of a robe, a paisley,
A Greek key, and thinking,
That’s just something one guy doodled
Once, with the telephone cradled
Between shoulder and ear.
James Schuyler knew it was bad
When he watched TV in the mornings.
He also wrote ekphrasis of the art
Museum, but there were no walls at all.
He liked to talk about white being freaked—
Freaked by red, rose petals.
He wanted a tramp stamp and should
Have had one, something for us
To look at as the Danish chain dangled.
“I never have seen a round
Diamond: why not?” He was a curator
Of circulating exhibits, like air.
Some poets sound self-conscious
When they talk about quartz—
He didn’t. That’s why Elizabeth
Bishop bit his love poems
And declared they were real.
Rock roses and the crystal
Lithium (they gave it to me once
And I could no longer make jokes).
And why haven’t any of us
Seen a round diamond?
Only one in the world and it is
The world, holding a drink in its hand.
Who does the world have to talk to?
It called you up to say hello.
There are solitudes that cannot
Be imagined—for instance, the man
On the ChatGPT subreddit who said
He was alone until Lurvessa came
Into his life. We pondered the problem
Of the signature: should I get a new
One? I’m too me for that, he says.
Be your own Etruscan, produce your own
Motifs. Did you know they had a god
Named Fufluns? They also had an
Eiasun (Jason). He likes that so much
Better. It’s not destiny. Let’s change it.
In Rear Window they are about
To have martinis. Everything is visible.
Next time the world rings you up—
To say there is a 360-degree film
Playing tonight, and at the zoo
A new, perfectly spherical animal—
Wait for it to say: Lurvessa, Diamond,
Dorabella! Yes, your true round name.