IN A DRAFT

Irrelevancies rush in —
Who has opened a window?
In the hallways where winds blow,
The court is in session;
What's left for one crushed in
Tradition but to hunker and question.

The buffeted glass, the crunch of gravel,
And in the corridor the crowd
Strains to hear above the din the gavel
Pronounce a sentence unintelligible,
And reaches — when my version's read aloud —
"Versus?" "Verses?" — some verdict barely legible.

Drafty trials! Trying drafts! Thank God outside
The playful fountain of non sequiturs
Sparkles, and beside it in their stride
Stroll with my will(power) my executors.

JEWELRY COUNTER

How many centuries are in a yard?
Whether millennia stretch their strands intact or
Continents drift forever is a factor
To fix the magnitude of my regard.

Jewelry must be the way to go;
Out of an ordinary box — the miracle
Of lustrums encapsulated in a glow:
A bit of empyrean from the empirical.

How many tera-, terrae, zeros are in it?
Counting up all the presents I owe,
Presents, pasts, and futures on the ecliptic show
One pendant Earth, monolithic and exquisite.