Why Don't You (Composition No. 2)

again, to Diana Vreeland

Why don't you...

drink coffee with cream in it from the long ago

when you were living in the Milky Way...

watch carriages come and go and lined in cherry silk,

from a high window...

at purple twilight wear Tweed cologne

in a polka dot dress splashed gold and vermillion

declaim the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins

or hop a bus on a pink and blue White Night

thinking of old Rus and bartered fairy tales

and Venice, when Mandelstam was young

and all the glory

of the Poetry to come

and warble Christmas carols

from a summer pier

and wear rhe soul's light mercy

for the more than anguished years.

mary angela douglas 3 october 2021