“Come back, in a few days.”
                                                —William Empson

Not that it was needed that much, this much
was clear. A little cleverness would do
as well, a lei woven of servility
and something like affection. He would crawl through

the long days, dreaming of something else,
just to be near and not caught out.
A famished throng followed, always keeping
the same distance. What is it like to mend

and be shattered, weep and not know what you’re
laughing about? The mother’s tone was severe.
She spoke, but very little. It was time to go away
into the pageant night had promised:

There were prisms and lanterns at the outer edge
and toward the center a vacancy one knew.
This is what it means then,
to be in a dream and suck sleep from a jar