The interviewer was leading me
To William James’s house. He kept
Stepping into the street as if it were
A stream, rush hour splashing up
His ankles. I thought he would be killed
But as William James knows, it is hard to die.
The man came with majuscules. He spoke 
Of his tailor: He Was My Soul! Of me he said
I’m Nervous As A Kitten, Meeting You!
He had ashes on his forehead, when I first
Met him in the Thompson Room. I stared 
Past him at five years ago, the podium,
That statue of Winged Time. Now I weaved
To the side of his good ear, as he asked
Everyone we met where the great man 
Had lived. One went still after a moment,
Looking at the stack in the interviewer’s hands.
I didn’t know it was you, he said, seeming 
Frightened. I have that book in my house. 
It *is* frightening, to see the author appear.
Where do you feel William James’s
Presence here? Around that corner, there,
Under the inscription WHAT IS MAN, THAT THOU
ARE MINDFUL OF HIM? Guts everywhere.
Green slime pods that no one could identify
For me. But where I saw him was in a gray tree,
Like pouring and pouring concrete. An elephant’s
Knee. I thought of the Cottony Pixin.
That’s what my father, as a boy, called cement mixers.
He was terrified of them. They were the jaws of the world.
Cottony Pixin Got Finger! he cried to his mother.
Cottony Pixin Got Finger! Later he would have one
Of the varieties of religious experience.
When we finally found William James’s 
House, there was one sitting in the driveway.
21st CENTURY CONCRETE, INC.
Red white and blue and a star.
It was under construction, as philosophy is.
Sold three years ago for eleven million.
Who lived here, the workers teased him,
Winking at me like sidewalk mica.
The Greatest Thinker America Has Ever
Produced! he said wildly, and dashed
Into the street again. And cried 
Out to those strong men—

Take Care of Him!

Just a new idea of mine,
He sang, receiving his latest Transmission.
He tapped into them every night now.
Maybe you’re having something like that,
He suggested. It had been so long for both
Of us, but once our beaks tore at little subjects.
We fed each other living wriggles.
No one knew where the Transmissions
Arrived from, or why. In the hospital
He looked at me, his third eye 
Glowing owl gold, and said he was seeing
All crossed universes. Nighttime
After that, was his greatest fear. 
When you wrote in the shadow 
Of the mountains, what was different?
I asked him. That you were alone,
That I was not there? I was high all the time
Like a hawk, he reflected. He was the singer
Of a beautiful 90s band called Flush,
Had bleached hair, wore shiny shirts,
And looked exactly like a picture
I would take of him twenty years later,
Covered with white cockatoos.
My greatest fear: birds, we said, 
Laughing. What was your voice 
Like back then? I ask occasionally.
It can’t be the same one I hear now in my home.
Our bodies are trying to remember how
To be something. Maybe not songbirds,
Maybe something more raptorous,
Diving and drafting, pecking at a belly,
Our heads turning 360 degrees. 
When he stopped it was dreadful to me,
Like someone had died. A thousand thousand
Miles between us. I should have been something
Else, should have been another person.
Now a hawk overhead, in the heart, shuts
All distance. Just a new idea of mine, he sings, 
All universes crossing, Ten women at the same time.