I wonder whether I’ll ever have a cane
the kind blind men, old men, gentlemen use
a cane I can test the ice with like Yeats
or tap on the sidewalk, scare bugs
and pigeons with, when disquieted times
come, those gaunt, old downhill years
I’ll need that cane
or some cane made of rosewood
or some other wood, a cane of pastimes
and even an exclamation cane,
which is indeed a clothespin of a cane
joining the earth to a hand,
their interlocking pair of pliers
where you loved me once.
Translated by Stephen M. Dickey