A Rollicking Old-Age Song

Book excerpt: This collection, written since Two Wives Ago: Selected Poems, includes poems on Isaac and strong-willed Abraham, King Lear and his troublesome daughters, the mysteries of choir practice, the historical prominence of male decapitation, a boy shot by the cops, searching the lake for a missing boy, a hippo in the bed (with the poet's wife?), old age and decay, death-timely, too soon, too late, sweet love in youth and in old age, lilac blossoms in an outhouse, a gardener's hopes and joys and failures, elephant dung, a skunk, a quite day at the frog pond, the history and esthetics of tattooing, a Japanese woodblock print moon, a Robert Frost tool, an E.M. Forster story, and a message which may have gone astray. Cover engraving by J.G. Posada