WHEN I WAS YOUNG I COULD WRITE THE ENTIRE WORLD IN AN AFTERNOON

WHEN I WAS YOUNG I COULD WRITE THE ENTIRE WORLD IN AN AFTERNOON

But now he is telling me stories
about Pound and Gaudier-Brzeska
before the war. Before the world
reminded us that we are nothing.

And that we are everything, like stars
above—they keep shining. It doesn’t matter
what we wanted. What we receive 
is a matter of ordination. [Dear Reader,

I would remind you that movement 
is a formula like finding love.] How somewhere

there is an anvil. And somewhere
there is a hammer. Somewhere
Pound is saying, “Let there be commerce
between them.”