28 October 2004
9 April 2024
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
called coming stations, a woman
in a long coat passed her hand
through mine in an upwards
direction, towards the left
she held a dime, Liberty,
1930, it 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-tip pens
in a corridor
some one switched on the radio
La Marseillaise and Old King Cole
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 some cream
between