that insists, year by slow year,
"Love loves itself1 Loves nothing else!"
But you can't go back on our pact,
the body's bargain with itself.
Now nothing can save you
unless I do, the past rushing
to fill the future's narrows.
Thirty years . You've paid the price.
Or I will . Because today
I saw something remarkable:
a cloud in the shape oj a woman,
a woman in the shape oj a cloud,
form coupling with fluid
loveliness, moving and restless.
Soon you'll be myth, a cloud
floating in a sea of blue,
artfully drifting nowhere
I can imagine, what's known, what's earthly,
of no importance whatsoever
in the life that follows this one.
Susan Lasher
NARCISSUS
How strange it must be to find yourself,
finally , by the side of a road with yourself
and your hands, not knowing quite what to make
of it-whether to stick out a thumb for a ride, to make
a small saving gesture, or to clap them together
just for the noise, not that the leaves together
with the wind aren't noise .
If
it seemed that a shout
or an obvious birdcall would get a response, a shout
