And what

if the one who cuts through hedges;

if the one who goes down

and pauses at the sunken orifice of death

            is a boy?

And if that girl, coming back,

crosses the living room, the circle

of appearance, of mourning               --she,

the one who sidesteps her own trace,

her weight there,

her tenebrous absence, bolting,

turning and bolting in spurts between the still furniture?

She, in whom a deep shaft of tenderness intrudes

setting off wellsprings and radicles, extensive orchards--  she enters

shivering,

the living room, and from there I glimpse her:

A staircase of ice

and what else?

 

 

 

n e x t

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