WOULD COME BACK tongued and talking, laughing off
the soot and small hallways where he had to crouch
and squirm to get through, not fearing close spaces
as when he lived, for all is puzzle, a game
to come on the clues: miniature dog in full point,
monogrammed robe, a globe, three screws
and an oscillator, mashed landscape from a train set—.
how does it all fit in? Now he has his brown study, all the quiet
he wants, and no one can distract him from his thoughtwork,
whirr and pulse of machine in machine, nobody
to bother him with origin or end, as if he has his first mind,
not his last. Without hand-hold or leg-hold, hearth-tender
and in full kilter, he would come and be the gathering in my head,
the grave inside I tend and tend, the one that is blackening soft.