The flower pod, green-white, hand sized,
bloomed at night. As the dead increased,
the world of objects seemed more dense,

It was a human place. On either side
young women and young men held manmade things
contrived for widening their lives. Some held,

Collect and recollect. These things I do
within, where, present with me is the world
and whatever I could think of it,

Days and nights of the most and largest changes
in her tenth year. Absolute time had always been near,
but in that year it entered her seemingly

One shoulder breaking the tension of a satin slip,
making the strap fall loose inside the dress.
Bend of the gesture sliding the strap back, into place,

What I thought was stillness
was not stillness. What else would
a tall girl love but hills to stand on

When his arms raise it’s all he knows of how
a body opens. Light and full,
his body in the moment just before she touches him