CHARCOALS
A MAN TO A DEAD WOMAN
A child half-sleepily piecing together bits of paper,
I draw close the remnants of my mind.
And when they are quite together, the lack of you blows them apart.
My spirit, curving as a pliant, burdened tree,
Sitting with your spirit, and plaiting the shadows of its hair,
Does not see the child and his labors.
I do not know whether to he joy-white with my spirit,
Or rent-gray with the blown remnants of my mind.
THE CRUCIFIXION
Her body was flowing and close-woven—
A slippery, whispering curtain which could not stop
Streams of dim gleams behind it.
One day with a long knife I cut a rent in the curtain:
I saw a soul nailed to a cross—
Slender, perfect-lipped, trying to laugh at its agony,
Counting its spattering blood-drops amusedly.
And somehow I could not find the sight dreadful.
