Lovin' that Lesley Jenike

If you haven't bought her book, you should. If you have, you will go straight to heaven, classier for the reading.

Lost Eyes or The Lost Art of Transcription
— for Hart Crane’s mother

To coax out your spirit I left a fifth of Cutty Sark
on the highboy, paper lantern in the cherry tree,

map of indeterminable coast by the bed, borrowed
Tempest, tattersall-covered, in the bed, full-fathom

five, a crushed Mexican lily, born of paper from
our tax holiday you lined the sea with, a stop-gap,

while I sheltered upstairs on a cool wide spread,
waiting for you to die. Love-making was never easy,

but to transcribe it? Minus a mouth, your tear-jerkers
turn to gas and fly. I sink into your syntax one

antiquated line at a time, as if I understand. But I
never did. You are too much for me, even dead