Like the Mayo on Jimmy

   
Schuyler’s hand in an early Photorealist 
poem by Barbara Guest, I want you
to convey the errant parts
of me that leave
myself like an unwitting postman
only to return like Noel Black
on the news of someone’s tongue—
 
This is what the rappers mean
when they ask can I live?
only to set the pagoda on the lake aflame
so its baffled smoke
can move across the kitchen
like the mayo on Jimmy
 
Schuyler’s hand in the last great Barbara
Guest sandwich poem, secretly
uproaring an otherwise
dim afternoon, like Noel Black taking a bath
somewhere on
the Continental Divide, steady
fingering the porcelain
into verse