I wonder whether I’ll ever have a cane
that blind men old men gentlemen use
a cane I can test the ice with like Yeats
or tap on the sidewalk, scare bugs
and pigeons when the disquieted times
come, those gaunt old downhill years
I’ll need that cane
something of a cane of rosewood or
some other wood, a cane of pastimes
and even an exclamation cane
which is indeed a clothespin of a cane
joining the earth to a hand,
their interlocking pair of pliers
where you loved me once.