Jeff Harrison: A Poem

Dangerous Palmistry

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
watching whom writing do

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
any of my names vaunted
is a lure to rival any forked meat

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
I, too, o'erlooked graceful usurpers

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
common collars, daily, abjure,
twice, my familiar folly, Virginia,
O Virginia, calm-browed opossum

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
we neglect artillery kings; the mad are horrid
Virginias, Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
the mad are horrid Virginias still

Virginia, calm-
browed opossum,

awakened
the moon
and, with
all portion
of notes,

stayed the pluck, old cheat,
slowed the oft, loitering like
some longer-lived eye's toy

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
corpses, perchance, meek me well —
CHRONOS, Virginia, met as a sparkling lisp

Virginia, calm-browed opossum, you, too,
tho craftily, not perchance, meek me well  

Virginia, calm-browed opossum,
last night I dreamed I owned
a W. Somerset Maugham novel entitled
"Miss Claverly And The Postmodernists" —
it was a slim black Signet edition with
the inscription, in unknown hand, THIS
MAKES DEPTHY DEEPS FOR ROARING ICE

Virginia, calm-browed opossum, you, too,
may yet make depthy deeps for roaring ice

Virginia, calm-browed opossum, to speech, aye,
to speech the deranged oath — dare I? — aye:
"dangerous palmistry, ah!, dangerous palmistry"