He’s watching Downton again:

the pompous men and petty girls, proud

of the nothing they have. All teeth and jowls and starch,

thoroughbred characters and thoroughbred actors, 

look like birds. Hearts of gold, some. 

The gold needs polishing with time—

The gold needs scrapping, if we’re talking the now. 

---

A frame can be too heavy for a portrait; 

a thin silver-gold will lighten the faces. But, 

if we were true to the moment, 

we’d have a photograph. Black and white, to start. 

A fence with leaves, or a dog midbound.

An engine of light and water. Or a church whose quiet

bleeds through the matte. Makes one hush.

---

I’d like a room of textures. Crushed velvet,

plant stalks, leather, candle wax, the curve

of a peach. Someone said it means lust, to have 

to handle these things, and it seems lonely on a level.

Fine. Leave me the couch, keep the metronome

and Oedipal wisdom and zeugma for your boytoy 

in the parking lot. He doesn’t golf—

has that much sense. He and I sport 

over pub popcorn and mules which candidate has 

real teeth. We snigger and sip in the fun of pretending

we know things, guarding scraps and snapping like terriers 

over any sniff or slight. Proud of the nothing we know, 

and too proud for a book to better us.

Gossip feeds the Googlemen & magpies:

---

Black and white.

Feathers.

The hush after takeoff.

---

Leave us this much. The sport may be petty

but for what else was the field mown to stubble?