after: The Disintergration of the Persistence
of Memory at the St. Petersburg Dali Museum

 (refusing the docent tour
the head phones or even
to read the wall placards 
my choice is to settle 
down on a wall bench
face the painting
with the squint of blurry eyes
make out my own thoughts
while Dr. Hue & Penelope do
their duet around the glass dome)

Dr. Tom and ZZ viewed the original 
Persistence at MoMA many times
so his words ring in ZZ’s ears
with the prejudice of foresight:
the clocks like soft cheese melting
an inside view of Einstein’s brain
ants on their modern march to watch
the old world end, a single tree
spent as if run over by humanity

in Disintergration relativity becomes
a quantum expression of Hiroshima 
ICBMs on their way
the one lifeless tree joined by another
the whole scene flooded with sea rise
the melted clocks urgent, the dead
fish dead, pricked by missiles
and laying on the four square 
structure of a spoiled sea floor:
it’s like clicking on today’s nytimes

it doesn’t take ZZ two hours to see
Dali as potent prophet,
when Penelope finds him
he’s slumped in sleep
dreaming of walking 
hand-in-hand with dear Dr. Tom
down Fifth Avenue