POETRY: Imagist At Coney Island by Maura Eichner

One decade into the 20^th century,
Pound, with his back

to Brooklyn, pointed his beard
to the Atlantic. Simply

to receive the kingdom, Ezra
linked arms with John Butler Yeats.

Their shoes filled with sand. Pleasure
rode the water, solid as Staten Island Ferry.

At dusk, lights rose like a fever chart.
Coney Island “marvelous against the night.”

In the amusement park Yeats
rode an elephant on the merry-go-round,

“smiling Elijah in the beatific vision.”
Pound leaned against a railing

Pouring sand from each shoe,
words ripening in him in August heat.