by Vernon Frazer and Michelle Greenblatt

Transient bottle acclamations

                                         eliminate the vast accrual

                                                                      of quasi

                                                                                      solid space

where we pick up water         & Baudelaire's black tulip,

lost and found

                               again                          a flavor

                                                    prescient                               as

synthetic ennui

a

         dandy's

                                   gift                        from                         the

                                                                                             present

to the future

              tense--

so you would like to know why my oracular

          tenses

promise not a future. I will prophecy

& prophecy,                           if only to diagnose the present,

                                                                                in obscure tongues of past

& future                                 in the clarity     Cassandra

                                                melded, rumors

             grow

                                                                                 wings

                                                        fly around

                                                        the stage

as bitterness fades to half-view in the vat of her throat, bubbling

dark wisdom through the ancient froth, lips worth licking to those who

                                                                                               knew

                                                             the things

                                she meant