A Man, Dressed and Trimming the Beard

A Man, Dressed and Trimming the Beard

With selected words from Wallace Stevens'

The Well Dressed Man With The Beard

After tequila and sweet tortillas, yes, he always

sees this far into the future

of things. Tonight he offers himself to her;

rejected, he'll wither, moot as a cataract

on the sightless eye. (What difference can obstruction

make to blindness?) No greater flaw betrays

the trumpet than its own urgent tone

slicing air until the listener can't

sustain the listening. Shadow and silence descend;

the taste of honey can never sweeten the heart,

the eloquent phrase of the mind will not bud, and love though

believed, is not affirmed in flesh and bone.

An omen? he thinks as he slips, draws blood. No, it can

never really ease the pain, tequila.