Where the gale winds blew they crouched low
where too much horizon leered they fashioned a circle
and drew its boundaries tight

Of course the face is real
of course it isn’t a private fantasy
we see it as clearly as you do

You died on Wednesday. On Friday
I’m hauled by limousine to be photographed
for a magazine feature, Charles Street

Here is the wide veranda striped in sunshine
and here, beside the house, those bushes heavy
with tiny white clustered berries said

After the first death there is a shrinking.

Miracles to fit in a spoon.

The sun rolling crazy and free as the wheel of an old baby buggy.

So much depends
upon
forgetting much

It nudges you from your shallow sleep,
it whispers love-mockeries.

Beyond our seed-littered pond a small forest of bamboo grows wild.
Hear the wind-rustling like shaken paper? Bamboo.

Numbskull, inject
At first there seems a placid lake
      on which

Ah well, I walk out into the road all fancied up.
I must admit I feel fine. But, you see,
A statement of this sort is misleading.