Parnassus Theater

Boxcars of mushrooms in the Orphic train.
You were ushered through rain to a church
surcharged with doves. Your peerless buttonholes
scoured the railroad station for something to dovetail
with. Mayhem's in the mail: assassinated whales.
A poet is more a catcher of ailments than a pitcher
of ale. You left your sapphire cat on the balcony;
the rain drenched him. Sappho eftsoons wrested
the belltongues from a pitcher of Bell's, for she was
a catcher of hells. You rest beneath a willow
beside the mirror; Lindsay Lohan lows at
the cow-shaped creamer. You dream a shapeshifter says,
"Let us blow this ashen hostel." And if you wouldn't mind,
I would like my lettuce Prussian blew and Irkutsk
umber, my skirts bedecked with irksome rhinoceroses.
You blew the conch shell until I regained consciousness
and saw the blue roses. You were a yew
a dovecoated Orpheus had ushered up from Hell.



Edward Hopper, New York Movie, 1939