and the greatest of these

 

met Mark Rothko at midnight

on the last train out of NYC

we were in a tunnel it was

plastered with colour, incendiary

but intimate, we spoke

in blue tones

around us

phantoms of dead conductors

collected fares, a woman

in a long coat passed her hand

through mine in an upwards

direction, towards the left

she held a dime, Liberty,

1930, gleamed, she hesitated

then released it somewhere

about my appendix

I saw a baby upside down

inside her this is getting

weird I said to Mark he said

yeah, let's go outside and

threw himself backwards through the

door between the carriages I saw

him disappear in fields

of red canals the

backs of his eyeballs I suppose

when I followed I heard the sound

of rushing water

then we stood in a gallery

gazed at gigantic eggs

being decorated by children

with felt-tipped pens

in a corridor

some one switched on the radio

La Marseillaise and Old King Cole

et cetera and then a talk back show

Mark was warming to his theme

the radio

voiced his thoughts if you've ever heard

a shock jock pronounce an abstract

noun you'll

know what I mean

like a proposal of marriage

on a race track

or a coronation at

night

or cream

between