SIGHT UNSEEN
for Tony Frazer
England like a treasure map
Opens on places marked with x’s
And rivers whose names call for
The tongue between the teeth.
And somewhere between the old
Elegance and the troubled present
A company receives our writings.
I imagine a modern-day footman
Carrying the packages upstairs
To a drafty room where, in one
Slanting corner sits an editor-in-
Chief, who receives them, curious
About why the word savannah
Appears so many times, patiently
Reading, saving judgment till he
Comes to the end of hundreds of
Verses, about worlds different from
What passes below his window, but
With the same surge and clatter
He finds deserving of being heard.
for Tony Frazer
England like a treasure map
Opens on places marked with x’s
And rivers whose names call for
The tongue between the teeth.
And somewhere between the old
Elegance and the troubled present
A company receives our writings.
I imagine a modern-day footman
Carrying the packages upstairs
To a drafty room where, in one
Slanting corner sits an editor-in-
Chief, who receives them, curious
About why the word savannah
Appears so many times, patiently
Reading, saving judgment till he
Comes to the end of hundreds of
Verses, about worlds different from
What passes below his window, but
With the same surge and clatter
He finds deserving of being heard.