Ask Peter Venture
laid down low
in a crisp red cedar casket

Who at the pale post
under the dull scrutiny
of the long light perched
on the mail slot, shall sign?

Ask Peter Venture,
whose change of clothes
was there in that smooth
blue hamper basket?

And who will bear the labor
of the cold glint in the Ax-light
of a water glass at mealtime?

---Ask Peter Venture, who when the band strikes,
will sing and who listen?

In the Crystal Ballroom,
who will brave their fortune against the first cuts
of double-edged scandal?
Who will murder their doubts?

Ask Peter Venture,
laid down low,
in a crisp red cedar casket,
Ask, yes ask,

Where are singing masons?
Roof bosses of gold?
Where the fiddlers who dance as they go?
Where the witnesses who savored his rose?
Where those who've seen him laid low?