4
Dread at the edge of vision,
no longer mired in the strategems
of the self, or its weather,
the
weather.
And a hawk on a branch can prey.
Waiting is action .
Medaglia d'Oro
on
the stove quickens the listless afternoon .
Lying back in bed afterwards she says, "It's either
rain or pine needles falling on the roof."
The dark coming earlier by the day,
to say nothing of the hour, to say.
A kind of dread. The mere end of summer .
happens every year, wherever you are, and yet.
The one thing these New England
villages lack is a square .
And yet - if I had some money
I'd stay the whole year.
5
There's always the chance there might be time
to begin, "Loin des oiseaux, des troupeaux,"
when the village girls disappear into the heather .
Another answer might slip unnoticed through the sluices.
Ladislas might be granted a passport.
Lulu, who hasn't had a drink in ten years
(though, in her own words, "still an alcoholic"),
could begin to conceive of life as a
"gift" rather than a "job."
There's always the chance, once the locks
