It came about at noon one day
at noon I decided to stop breathing;
scarcely had I chose before a rustle stirred
and the glitters melted on every thigh round the table.
I sat witnessing you, witnessing my hand.
I was only reaching for the jug, for the creamer,
but limbs are tender, eyes are foggy at this time
all golden lights on the tablecloth lie on the white hour,
noontime in the morning. I must have touched, at morningtime, you,
We must have seemed creamers to each other, true, so that we touched,
across the table, on the table, far from the flowers or the vase,
the two separate, the glass and leaf marriage (product of Sweden).
scarcely had I chose before a rustle stirred, a shudder shook,
every window rattled and the wind picking up, my boss
calling calling me even though I was unreachable,
silly dame I was in white noontime space, oh silly dame,
I had no sense of touch, silly me, I had volunteered my breath.
I breathed back into service, I drank my coffee black.

Down down the seaside hillock holds pebbles in the sweet indentations

Made by sparrows fast on the cliffs, and scooping in the dark

With my brown hands I pick up the rocks and hold them,

Ask all over them with my eyes—so soft soft.

They hum of the sea and smell like mushrooms.

I make small grooves and slide what I scraped away from beneath my nails,

I make lovers’ etchings in the stones, I make transfer-marks,

Carve alphabets, I throw them away.

I never place them back in their nests, but see! if they skip skip

Down down the seaside hillock to the waves,

I will have the luck thunder down down on me,

Heavy rocks, they never make it. They never do.

Maybe their aerodynamics are ruined,

Lovers’ etchings.

They sink and roll down and catch tight in another cave, this one in the grass,

This one made by the small bodies of some children.

They count the clouds in the sky while looking up up up,

The birds’ forms, and small planes, and they think of things, very idle,

Very idle, like pudding on a plate, sitting in its mess,

And like puddings these children melt in the grass,

Twisting because of the rocks under their backs,
Like the clouds they try try try try try to be born.

There was a cycle amid the alabaster oaks,

Wide rings like halos drawn in the skulls—

I meant snows—

Drifting through the glade on doe’s feet,

Getting stuck between squirrels’ toes.

This was the cycle that ran its course

Like an energy vein seamless threading in and out,

Multiplying the framework and making new stitching.

The old became the new; an Egyptian used the oaks to make a vase for his king,

Which filled with dust, which was lightless,

And settled to the ground.

Around, around the cycle flew,

curmudgeonly growings, little timid happenings,

Whispers of rabbits’ tongues and stowed corn that someone forgot

Got unburied when the skulls started to melt.