Poetry
Indran Amirthanayagam
After the Will Let us settle a few matters before
for rubbish pits of history, but something
the crows swoop down. The will is in my office
as Yeats said, to perfection brought.
drawer. The painting behind my desk
In the post-modern age, condemned to step out
shows a tree against a changing sky
on the Boston street again and again, yet
at evening, blue to red to mauve,
I will end, unlike Leary, on television,
and a single leaf falling, that looks
but quietly like the smoke of exhaust,
like a bird and will fly regardless
water condensed in the engine, let out
of my passing. I have spent too much time
in morning, a final emission
analyzing shards of memory, a lot written
of hothouse gas that inspired poetry.
Page 34