A Life
Touch
it:
it
won't
shrink
like
an
eyeball,
This
egg-shaped
bailiwick,
clear
as
a
tear.
Here's
yesterday,
last
year
—-
Palm-spear
and
lily
distinct
as
flora
in
the
vast
Windless
threadwork
of
a
tapestry.
Flick
the
glass
with
your
fingernail:
It
will
ping
like
a
Chinese
chime
in
the
slightest
air
stir
Though
nobody
in
there
looks
up
or
bothers
to
answer.
The
inhabitants
are
light
as
cork,
Every
one
of
them
permanently
busy.
At
their
feet,
the
sea
waves
bow
in
single
file.
Never
trespassing
in
bad
temper:
Stalling
in
midair,
Short-reined,
pawing
like
paradeground
horses.
Overhead,
the
clouds
sit
tasseled
and
fancy
As
Victorian
cushions.
This
family
Of
valentine
faces
might
please
a
collector:
They
ring
true,
like
good
china.
Elsewhere
the
landscape
is
more
frank.
The
light
falls
without
letup,
blindingly.
A
woman
is
dragging
her
shadow
in
a
circle
About
a
bald
hospital
saucer.
It
resembles
the
moon,
or
a
sheet
of
blank
paper
And
appears
to
have
suffered
a
sort
of
private
blitzkrieg.
She
lives
quietly
With
no
attachments,
like
a
foetus
in
a
bottle,
The
obsolete
house,
the
sea,
flattened
to
a
picture
She
has
one
too
many
dimensions
to
enter.
Grief
and
anger,
exorcised,
Leave
her
alone
now.
The
future
is
a
grey
seagull
Tattling
in
its
cat-voice
of
departure.
Age
and
terror,
like
nurses,
attend
her,
And
a
drowned
man,
complaining
of
the
great
cold,
Crawls
up
out
of
the
sea.
