"Two St. Petersburgs."
There's obviously Russia and Florida, to begin with.
That's as far as I get.
Among Niko's infatuations with television,
especially in '89 and '90, were--
he became a real CNN addict because there
kept being these toppled monumentalities,
these fallen Stalins and leaning Lenins,
big dictators with their noses in the dirt
and guys with their feet on them like the flag of Virginia.
He loved that.
He couldn't get enough.
He clipped them out of all the papers.
I would get up in the morning, there
would be holes in the paper, and I knew what it meant.
"Two St. Petersburgs."
"One.
The statue turned upon a chain.
Beneath its broken knees were 30 feet of air.
Under its sway of handwide eye stood, ludicrous,
a pedestal with only feet on top.
And under that ranged real but little people,
tiny uprightnesses, all abruptly free.
Freely they milled, collectively they buzzed.
They feuded over food, they fell in love anew, had words anew,
had different differences than heretofore.
The differences were free to spread--
an air of half-lights made for deep misgivings in the minds
of brand-new sunshade salesmen--
Two.
Florida.
The desk clerk's disposition is professionally sunny.
In the waterbed room I ask to be tied up, but nicely--
you know, nooses that release.
Detachment has apartments and attachment has departments.
We can order long and cool, or quick and hot.
Or quick and cool or long and hot.
But can we do the longer haul together?
Keep the living daylights ever-loving?
Kill the cough?
For broken is a place where something gave.
A joint's a place where something moved.
And eloquent is just a mess of hinge and sign--
a MO where the TEL is not yet fallen off--"