I’ve been busy today
with a tin can of gas.
I’ve been slaving away
with some rags and
a match. Now that the river
is darker than ever,
wider and wider, you’d think
with its planks and
its cables, the seven great arches
all suffered to ashes, the night
would be quiet; it’s not.
Over the croaks here
and there at the edges,
the sudden, artistic flashes
of luminous fish-eating
fishes, curious eddies,
I hear them—the people
so far on the far other
side still calling and shouting
with their moon-headed faces;
over the abetted cinders, shouting
and waving with horns
and confetti, with torn moonlit
hankies, it sounds like
they’re saying—I can’t
help but hear them—we’re
setting the table,
we miss you already.