The Poesy Palace
by Richard Epstein
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for Harold A spangled palace, Byzantine and bronze, Nevada, maybe, home but out of place, And filled with texts, as regular as clocks Or extra fiber, many wooden shelves, And tape recordings of a scornful voice, Too sotto to salute, too haut en bas To be ignored: a county in a land Which thinks it is exotic to be real. The blue-tiled roof is meant to funnel rain, But none has fallen this year. None fell last. The forecast augurs unrelenting light. The fruit trees all are starving, dried to sticks; And water for the fountains must be trucked From undisclosed locations. Still the fish, Copper and stone, spit featly, each to each. Their indicated fins have never moved. The house will soon be up for sale. At least Those vans outside imply that, and the lights Retract inside from room to room, until, There upstairs, to the north, there is one lamp, And it has flickered more than once tonight. |
 Patricia Wallace Jones |
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