He gazed into the air, searching for a word in my language.
I blinked. Across the pool a zephyr stirred, in my language.

Where was I? Where was he? Where he looked, remembering?

The branches shake, Jimmy, it rains in that trance;
Tuxedo in the colonnades asks after your breakfast.
A fire rises and falls in the house of Cadmus

Cut it way back.
Do not be afraid to pinch the first,
the only blossom. The berry cannot thrive

Undone. Only a head, a fine
cheek and throat his chisel cut
from white. She waits to become a thought,

They're lying on a Mexican blanket,
she's on her back with her knees up
and he leans on one elbow,

The one resting now on a plant stem
somewhere deep in the vine-hung
interior of South America

At the bus stop a blind man sells colored pencils.
Ballpoint pens, too, at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Ten cents for a pencil, two bits for a pen.

Some men say I've forgotten why I sing,
as if I were a happy, careless thing.

But just my speechless body stayed behind—

Eventually she stayed
with the overflown artery of Ouse
fingering pebbles one at a time two

Above: sun on the mountain
Below: mist on the water
The wise one waits