Of Three

I have two things and a wife,
a triumvirate of something within
the all order of my life.
The mind with its own triumvirate
of imagination, thought
and memory wants—no demands—
a going forth into a new gathering
and brooks no traverse of its seek
for scraps and litter along the way.
It brings me poems.

The cat brings me mice
which my mind files
with lice and rice for rhyme;
with cat and cheese for trite;
with hunt and god for vengance
where small things rise—
shrews, sparrows and tattered worms—
in my sentimental verse, triumphant,
just against tooth and claw.

My wife does not bring but is
a poem, and has her own triumvirate—
this home, our children, and her God.
Of these the cat believes in home;
and my mind, loving two and her,
files god with dog for rhyme
and wordplay, with mankind for what
man is or makes order up about,
with Aphrodite and hurricane
for a reason of his of.
Why it files him as stud and bull
is for another verse or rhyme
but not of this poem.

It files children, the three of them, with love
and her for how these are of us and all we have,
like home which it files with the odor of our lives
and with the one of poetry and of love
she brings to all the above.