you told about planting Gogol’s
nose in Roethke’s greenhouse and watering
it made me think of your body
as a zoo of body parts
(zoo: animal, captive, impotent, reflection.)
I forget the punch line. But you’re protected
from my tropospheric depressions
by the glass of words (tropos:
from the Greek to turn, and our word
‘trope.’) No joke.
