“I am myself a history / Flanked always by A.D., B.C.”

I.  THE FRONT PORCH GLIDER

Back and forth the glider heaves our strange bodies,
eighty-eight and twenty-four,
your head swaying on its stem like a balding dandelion:
eyes almost frosted over,
throat whiskers roothair-white, you smell
of mildew and ammonia
—Is this the God-haired evangelist whose supper prayer
was as big as a circus tent?