pendant

it brought him down home
to a certain tessellation of facts
which howsoever
was not the one they call brass tacks

a yesteryear of memory
envelops them my friend
the quondam poet sang of this
and an anathematical trend

we're never going broke at this
no zeal hath eat us up
or rather we have veal and zeal
and mercy for our stirrup-cup

and now my friend is parsing veal
and carapace and caritas
and what is kindness what a seat
from which to give a quoit a toss

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Christopher Mulrooney has written poems and translations in Los Angeles
Journal, Chiron Review, Segue, Burning Leaf, The Drunken Boat, and
Voices Israel, criticism in Parameter, Small Press Review, and The Film
Journal, and a volume of poetry called notebook and sheaves.