- Charlotte to Nathan
This is a genus Nobel but it is under protest
doing research on FFOV in Orange Courthouse
I was told ‘go back to the UVA archives; consult family letters . . . ’
though James Randolph Braxton catered the Chase Manhattan
catered the meal for the wizard in 1903, (then he died)
his obituary spread out like a French menu: five fingers of the hand
all Manhattan born bought two houses a block apart
(the suburbs) Brooklyn, for his two daughters cut loose three sons
corresponded with the wizard on foreign investments
Jay Gould sent his oldest to Paris to manage his personal effects
nothing but the crash could bring him home
this menu a framed tale to this evening’s snails [End Page 369]
so let us toast to better music sermonizing Adam Clayton Powell
in a Hazel Scott sonata in the Harlem pigalle
St Phillips vestrymen were at attention
uptown on the well-kept streets the pews were ready as tender
tintypes were approved jobs were plentiful if you could read
and read you did as the catering caboose made the cash for Brooklyn
saving for the public library that was the reservoir in which we strolled
Michael S. Harper is author of several volumes of poems, including Images of Kin and Healing Song for the Inner Ear. He is I.J. Kapstein Professor of English at Brown University, where he teaches courses in creative writing and literature.