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St. Patrick's Day

The white cockade sky encloses
pocketfuls of a lit garden,
I'm rapt away this spring
in a hide-and-seek playground
breathing of that Irish parade
here in the earliest light
appearing as any apparition
or wish fulfillment for peace.

A few convulsive kids
their skin like crystal
laces around the bandstand,
cheerleaders glitter like ruddy stars
with New Jerusalem emerald batons
and go-go boys
fresh from leather bars
pass out green bagels.
My bicycle wheels
by a snatched rock
sealed up with the snow.
I take off
with a son of thunder
luckily over a clover field.

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