-The movie star-

When Myrna Loy

Sat upon the porch swing

Beneath a clear sky full of cosmic goings-on

Conversing tentatively with Cary Grant

In the old movie: “The Bachelor and the Bobbysoxer,” 

Each syllable of every word

Dancing from her liquid mouth

Was pronounced with a delicacy

And fragrance which moved

The English language

Far from its Germanic stiffness

Into the fluid, romance of the French.

I'd like Myrna Loy to read my poems

To the Academy in Stockholm wearing
The dress she wore on the porch that night.

With her eyes wide-set across her face,

The observer travels slowly,

Eye to eye, planet to planet,

The journey pours from her mouth
Like a vintage wine, the slow
Grapes drawing the finish of earth's rich soil,

Its roots and minerals,–– with the dress

She wore on the porch that summer night,

draping her form like a sixth epidermis.

She warms the old men up with a glancing smile and then...

She reads.