He took a book of matches from his pocket.

Struck one. It flamed. He dropped it on the floor.

The fuel-soaked papers at his feet took fire.

“You’d better go,” he said. I backed away.

The inferno had been carefully devised.

The blaze reached out in lines across the room.

As the fire spread, the flames were beautiful.

VI.

“No one knows how the accident occurred.

It happened after I left,” I told Eden.

We sat on an immaculate divan

Beneath a David Hockney Swimming Pool.

The windows gave a view of Central Park.

“Tom and I talked about his situation.

He said that he was sorry you had suffered.

He had almost decided to come home.

As I walked out, he stopped me for a moment.

He made me promise I would visit you.”

• VI •

SONGS

THE COUNTRY WIFE

She makes her way through the dark trees

Down to the lake to be alone.

Following their voices on the breeze,

She makes her way. Through the dark trees

The distant stars are all she sees.

They cannot light the way she’s gone.

She makes her way through the dark trees

Down to the lake to be alone.

The night reflected on the lake,

The fire of stars changed into water.

She cannot see the winds that break

The night reflected on the lake

But knows they motion for her sake.

These are the choices they have brought her:

The night reflected on the lake,

The fire of stars changed into water.

SONG FOR THE END OF TIME

The hanged man laughs by the garden wall,

And the hands of the clock have stopped at the hour.

The cathedral angels are starting to fall,

And the bells ring themselves in the gothic tower.

Lock up your money and go bolt the door,

And don’t dare look yourself in the eye.

Pray on your knees or cry on the floor

Or stare at the stars as they fall from the sky.

You may say that you’re sorry for all that you’ve done,

You may swear on your honor and protest with tears,

But the moon is burning under the sun,

And nothing you do will stop what appears.

THE ARCHBISHOP

For a famous critic

O do not disturb the Archbishop,

Asleep in his ivory chair.

You must send all the workers away,

Though the church is in need of repair.

His Reverence is tired from preaching

To the halt, and the lame, and the blind.

Their spiritual needs are unsubtle,

Their notions of God unrefined.

The Lord washed the feet of His servants.

“The first shall be last,” He advised.

The Archbishop’s edition of Matthew

Has that troublesome passage revised.

The Archbishop declines to wear glasses,

So his sense of the world grows dim.

He thinks that the crowds at Masses

Have gathered in honor of him.

In the crypt of the limestone cathedral

A friar recopies St. Mark,