I. After the Fall

Standing in the midst of my illness
alone. Psychiatrist gone. The work

Does she feel safe there, between her dad's
big knees She stands upright or half sits,
red dress always the same, white underpants

Grief, have I denied thee?
Grief, I have denied thee.

That robe or tunic, black gauze

Like dogs in Mexico,
furless, sore, misshapen,

arrives from laborious nowhere

Your beauty, which I lost sight of once
for a long time, is long,
not symmetrical, and wears

Once a woman went into the woods.
The birds were silent. Why? she said.
Thunder, they told her,

Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway

The wind runs free across our plains,
The live sea beats forever at our beaches.
Man makes earth fertile, earth gives him flowers and fruits.

In a corner of Eden 
the one-horned black 
rare rhinoceros slept in the shade, 

Three countries blacken and vanish, 
rivers run unlighted and silent, 
lamp by lamp of the city came, went,