At the Hotel Pescille [judd]

Lay your head back my beauty
Let the sun bake if only for
One poisonous moment
You won’t feel this angle of
Solar ray much longer for
In only four days, no three now
We go back, all the way back
(And we do not know at
This sunny juncture
What awaits us,
A nor’easter and a crowded
Newark Airport with people
Acting badly toward other people
Who happen to have wings on their
Lapels but not on their backs)
But now an angel grills
Our lunch over glowing wood
An archangel whose scarred head
Bows over the inferno
He brought us this amber wine
This Vernacia
And my love rises with
Each magnificent sip