Bright Truth, sweet Love, you never helped
So well the terrible surfeit
Of our self.
Katherine Hoskins
A SURVIVAL
I have forgotten how. I try to wake,
I want to. But an eye, when morning comes,
Weeps grains of sand, an ear a bitter wax,
The linen winds and wrinkles like shed skin.
Outside, the angel fumbles with a rake.
He has forgotten, too. And by fall, albums
Are full of studies done in browns and blacks
For one stilled figure, rarely a face drawn in.
Father, your blind hound fleetest where he lies
In the familiar dream of weapon and flight
Stirring, will puzzle at my outstretched palm,
Then let me merge into those images
Whose odors guide, that can no more excite,
His silvering muzzle towards your perfect calm.
THE PERFUME
Ticklish no longer
With tangibility
Nor rooted, crimson, over
The worm's inching stupor,
