Dream, the Republican Convention

That night the mustard bush and goldenrod

and more unlikely yellows trod a spiral,

clasped in eviscerating blue china vases

like friendly snakes embracing—cool not cold.…

Brotherly, stacked and mean, the great Convention

throws out Americana like dead flowers:

choices, at best, that hurt and cannot cure;

many are chosen, and too few were called.…

And yet again, I see the yellow bush rise,

the golds of the goldenrod eclipse their vase

(each summer the young breasts escape the ribcage)

a formation, I suppose, beyond the easel.

What can be is only what will be—

the sun warms the mortician, unpolluted.