(Excerpts from the VALENTINE collection)

ST. CECELIA

Now East, those angels of sobriety,

Of drunkenness, of children

Unwhole and waiting to be saved.

In the dream I am forever walking

through the East Village

with a black-haired unkempt boy.

There are mosaic faces of saints

in the corridor of the mausoleum

where a group of black marble children solemnly play.

I suddenly know the songs

that rise out of St. Cecilia's organ

in the stained glass window.

Patron Saint of music,

what have you done to the

boys in my life?

They walk like zombies

toward rhinemaidens dressed in river weeds.

They understand the language of ravens.

They denounce all angels

and hide when the daylight comes.

They yield like Paul on the road to Damascus,

dropping to their knees

for the conversion.