A poem by Thomas Thornburg from Ancient Letters

The manhole circled in the sidewalk,
In front of North Hall Barracks which
Was in my day a dorm (the talking
Girls grown fatter, older, bitchy,
The leggy sophomores we boosted
To books, to bedrooms afterhoured,
Past time, past youth, past guards who glowered
Toward the boondocks where we boasted),
Is struck with this iron legend: N E E N A H
Confessedly no coursers prance there,
Shielding only checkered waters
Is it tennoned, there where daughters
Of latex-girt alumnae chance it,
The brazen cocks of dawn are dawdling.

*

Thetis of the shining surplice,
Did once those breasts like hoydens’ boobies
Burst unbaffled into boisterous
Bussings where the billows tubbed? N E E N A H

*

Dido in the diddled myrtle,
What undergraduate punk ungirls you
Now beside the North Hall door? N E E N A H
The sound of water moving, iron
Over waters, runing,
Is the absent shacked-up cunning,
The sensual academic strut
Of belly and curvaceous butt,
Is Time attendant as these pass
Sullenly to classics class (
where the professor is an ass) N E E N A H