Overheard Conversation

My hairline is receding.
The pads of my fingers walk catlike
To the bare new places on my brow
Where the skin is smooth with oil.
This oil is prized by my love
For she applies it to the cork pads
Of her flute.
The shoreline is receding.
The mice are walking on the forehead of Lenin
The veins there icing over like the canals
Of the great city
When the starvation came
And men devoured horses
In the streets.
Domed intellectual? They say
Goatsbeard!
Still, he did his best work on trains.
Let us link tails and dance,
for as children, we learned the way to Hamlein.

^

Biography

John D. Orem is a fourth-generation Washingtonian. This marks his return
to publication after a 14-year hiatus; and follows his father David's appearance in Electric Acorn 7. He is presently employed in private asset management but gently reminds us that Wallace Stevens was an insurance man.