My Act

An invisible clown on a garbage can

attempts to move robotically

to the sound of a delicate calliope

falling through all of that traffic,

like the November excuse for sunlight:

poor. An echo (già) of Palermitan voices.

Paris: Les Deux Magots, fashion prostitutes

at 40—an endless school excursion

for refined young women. It must have been

an unconcern for expense that drove them

out into this puny negation

of the night to come.

However, the clown, eyeing my

writerly act (Sitting before Les Deux Magots)

and not receiving any coins just the same,

feigns indignation—and a woman with Dante’s

profile (ti giuro, spaccato!) who also

would not smile—refuses to invite change.

Thus the world goes on

                             the same.

          11/27/1991

          Paris