CLOUSSEAU
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.
“The Idea of Order at Key West”
He does it wrong, but not as we do,
in little gaffs and fumblings, but so it stuns,
astonishes, so that the head of bungle
swallows the tail of catastrophe:
a chase as rounded as a villanelle
sucks in half of Paris
as it builds toward closure,
where it meets itself, erupting a rosette
of patrol cars, fire trucks, sopranos,
kitchen sinks, and leaving the Chief
minus another digit. Think of it:
to have a genius so magnetic. Who wouldn’t
take the lumps and contusions
to have the world always tumbling at our feet,
its darkness crystallized; who would balk
at saying “Minkey” and “Beump” if we could change
the muddle into measurements of light,
gems in a lush kaleidoscope.
—William Trowbridge
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first appeared in Tar River Poetry