An Underworldliness
        for Aileen Winter Mostel

Maybe a maker makes
another out-by the mark
of the mechanism -keyboard cabaret—
clown in love with his own club (one foot's
spondee). I turned it over

in my sleeping head, that
fallow feeling — pillow a numbset's
handskull — till from fidgeting synapses

rose an REM of ultivated answer—
all-but-seeing

eye on a stem — the glancer born to blow
byway of aneurysm... (at what
altitude or depth, what
certitude or asterisk,
nobody seeing
could see through).
The star was visibly

newfangled, brimming over from
the wave or cup one was

to drain or fill — who knew? No
thinking would contain it now.

Sidewise it angled, and shone up.

Copyright © 2009 Heather McHugh All rights reserved
from Upgraded to Serious
Copper Canyon Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission