I said

Who can recognize every familiar street or placard

Of who slept where or fell right down in Mutualité

Or Swan Street? – then he is jiveass, milkman, hot, Charles, not to trust.

For recognitions we must lean on others,

Those first men and women who spread powders in the sink,

The dust like stars, when we first had to wash our hands

In the astral map, from black to centrifugal white –

Those sweet providers of outlandish rooms,

the men nowhere to be seen, the women

invariably out at the edge somewhere, lulled

by the lines of the baleen venetian blinds.

We speak in tongues when we go back.

Speak to the fidgeting man in Mali Street, he says:

“Each day new amazements meet the eye,

Cities and groves interchanging,

Key bridges of light transacted,

The tongue and the spirit work in devious way.

Hey.”