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Michael Morse 
Quo, with the rain in his head and starch in his heart,
his feet bone-soaked with the rain that won´t stop.
He´s out in the crowded streets backpedaling, he´s singing a song
where lyrics wander back and forth, winter, fall, fall, winter.
It´s a two-step out among the gray and navy men,
the Burberry´s and the Brooks Brothers,
when out of the what´s-not-blue comes a small girl
out of the great gray cloud of men a girl, a yellow slicker.
My name is Quo and I´m talking about the kind of coats we wear
when we walk down a block and can´t quite feel our feet on pavement.
I´m talking about the times when there´s something in between,
something slight and soft, ephemeral, small, and tragic,
like my lip between my teeth when I think of a girl in Cambridge.
And here´s this girl in her yellow coat, impermeable.
I´m Quo. She´s yellow. It´s a joust or a sign to clear the streets--
I run, I´m Quo come in out of the rain, yellow slicker to my eye
a stain, an awl to isinglass; I murmur my plants on the sill,
now, my ficus, my little spider plant, my esmerelda,
now we´ll have a god run among us in the streets,
someone come down like Mercury as a girl in a yellow slicker
but a god nonetheless with his wings on her back,
a little salt in his blood and his desire down here--
like Quo thinking of his girl in Cambridge and he´s there,
like a god coming down to run an empty street just to feel his feet on
something firm,
Mercury, his head in his heart and his heart in his head, living in-between,
yellow, his sandals hitting water, two-stepping the lumen down
under the lamplight, stomping and dancing, the gray coats long gone--
Oh Mercury, you little girl in gold, welcome back.
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