Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Boy
For Son, this week a high school grad.
After Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Blackbird, by Wallace Stevens.
Thirteen Ways Of Looking At A Boy
I.
Among the twenty pieces of furniture,
The only moving thing
Was the thumb of a boy
On the X-box controller.
II.
I was of three minds,
Like a stoop
On which sit three boys.
III.
A boy whirled on his bike in the neighborhood streets.
He was a small part of the pantomime.
IV.
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a boy
Are one.
V.
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The boy whistling
Or just after.
VI.
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass. The shadow of the boy
Outside crossed it, to and fro. The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII.
O busy parents of the white picket fence,
Why do you imagine ivy leagues on brick?
Do you not see how the boy
Walks around the feet
Of the unknowns around you?
VIII.
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the boy is involved
In what I know.
IX.
When the boy walked out of sight
Through the door of the school,
He marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X.
At the sight of boys
Driving through a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI.
She rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced her,
In that she mistook
The shadow of her equipage
For boys.
XII.
The river is moving.
The boy must be growing.
XIII.
It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The boy slept,
His limbs long on the couch.