Cant

for Thomas Green Bethune

Thar he blows! Plus, tusks
crushed into grins, grins
host to, guest of, impish

Nature, her fort/da “jewels”
glassified behind blank
opposable pupils—Ahabit perfected

(“perhaps memory”) by/for the dicey
Veil. Auto-didact/-dialectics
staged in rent-to-rent

“crowded houses,” asea to har-har-
poon Terrible Tom’s tom-tom
stutter—VAC C . Gone

but for “language, music,
imitation and perhaps memory.”
Owns no umbrella to forget to splay

open like a bucket. Can’t cast
down, can’t go singin’ in
the there.