Lie Like an Old Tear

Sexton’s worms and elves that tend
Dickinson’s palpitating
(Palpitating!) vineyards sing

So pale, so frail, counting bees
Under Clive James’ maple tree.
This art’s phraseology

Fore and aft of everything
Else that poetry can be—
Any astonishing knot

Of words that alter reading
The way an unseen vortex
Captures rafters as they float

And spins their boat in its whirl
Before letting them go.
The phrase may be fixed in verse

Or exist as a sudden,
Passing change in register
In a steady flow of prose,

But it’s the phrase you’ll recall
After the rest of the text
Has dwindled to an address

You keep so you can find it
Again, that remarkable
Twist in the language, that phrase.