——— for Robert Lowell

At Roosevelt, the orderlies were forced to break 
your wrists — the large brown-paper parcel 

that you clutched against your breastbone held
in place by rigor mortis. That it should end

like this — your death and final moments thick
with parable and irony. Your briefcase filled

with notes for poems you’d never re-arrange —
an illustrated postcard of the Vinalhaven Islands —

the salts that they prescribed to help you fasten
down your brain. A yellowhammer stiffened

on the newsprint in its cage — your heart — 
undone by injury — gave up without complaint.

Magnolia and ginkgo trees were breaking into flame.
Your taxi like a solar barge. Its nose against the waves.