I see you on a Greek mattress

reading the Book of Changes,

Lebanese candy in the air.

On the whitewashed wall I see

you raise another hexagram

for the same old question:

how can you be free?

I see you cleaning your pipe

with the hairpin

of somebody’s innocent night.

I see the plastic Evil Eye

pinned to your underwear.

Once again you throw the pennies,

once again you read

how the pieces of the world

have changed around your question.

Did you get to the Himalayas?

Did you visit that monk in New Jersey?

I never answered any of your letters.

Oh Steve, do you remember me?

1963