Clouding the cold sea water. She wished she were dead
With dark flowers and her naked feet
Stained crimson—
Tell me, are the waters fed
In the hillside?
She heard the drip, the beat
Of seas gathering underground. She heard
The moon moving under Perkins Street—
Why do you circle here, O lost sea bird!
Under the root of the pine-tree, under the stone
She heard the red surf breaking.
This occurred
When she was thirteen years—
When the withered cone
Fell from the pine-tree in the ancient spring
The river turned to blood—and they had gone
7
