(A Slant Terza Rima Acrostic)

Ah, that poem of your mother
(Living on in elegy) which
Leapt the page, unsure whether

It’d snare me with highs of such
Sensimillan breathlessness
Or its poet’s airy touch

Not doled out to curse or bless
Loss and madness, starry, wound
Our arcs launched on idols’ duress:

Richard Brautigan’s wry mind
Rotted (though not dulled one iota)
An unknown month; bad winds did

In Dante. And I, in Vita
Nuova boyhood, knew no
Epicist worth your time. But a

Heavenly voyager like you,
At it without a Virgil
Running you amok, could go

Places with pause and sound still
Elysian to even The Greats,
Rebuking our recondite hells.