290
PARTISAN REVIEW
Her speaking tributaries;
But the trees, the trees,
That answer no question swift enough,
Heave their prodigious scholarship
Underground in a tortuous argument.
Her breasts are beyond my window,
Just beyond, for I approximate
Their beauty, and never question their being
Twin unbelievable birds
Whispering what a hundred strings
Can only mutter.
After this discourse and this music
There is, under the knee and among
The vulnerable alps of the spine,
More tremulating firmness, than in
A sequoia's new ring,
Or the liquid assets of the sky.
SOCKEYE SALMON
Caught in the glib catcher's net
With the fly that wanders, is the wonder fish;
Threshes a moment in the windowed lace
Tlll the eye is opaque and supremely glazed.
Not projects outward no tangent beam,
Not gets increase of scenery
Passing to affiict the retina.
Being unfit to negotiate
The invisible livelihood of lungs,
It flails in a harder-to-swim-in sea.
Outward in material lies its wherewithal,
And the gills adjust, discriminate,
But is caught by the introspective air
That moves captor's brain and viscera.
