That Summer by Gnoetry & Gregory Fraser

Each idea came in a different size, at variant speed—
like a rabbit or a library. Gradually, the question dawned:
Is there nothing in the grange? The age was proof of what
can become so soft, but someone has to cut the worm.

I’m not sure what brand of jealousy flared in me,
though I like to pretend I’m able to make do.
Yet then: the dozen streets, ropes fastened
to a king’s accounts, the strong resemblance to iron work,

as the critics noted. (I had not expected any public,
generous or cruel.) That summer, I kept thinking about
the long division of blood into generations, about
the busts of the very rich who abhor a vacuum, i.e.

the hard press of the ill. What strangers we thought
we were, what objects of a breathless silence
occupying stately rooms. Behold. Forget. The soldiers,
the flesh, the sea. And every friend in name alone.