What's O'Clock/Sultry

by Amy Lowell

SULTRY

To those who can see them, there are eyes, Leopard eyes of marigolds crouching above red earth, Bulging eyes of fruits and rubies in the heavily-hanging trees, Broken eyes of queasy cupids staring from the gloom of myrtles. I came here for solitude And I am plucked at by a host of eyes.

A peacock spreads his tail on the balustrade And every eye is a mood of green malice, A challenge and a fear. A hornet flashes above geraniums, Spying upon me in a trick of cunning. And Hermes, Hermes the implacable, Points at me with a fractured arm.

Vengeful god of smooth, imperishable loveliness, You are more savage than the goat-legged Pan, Than the crocodile of carven yew-wood. Fisherman of men's eyes, You catch them on a three-pronged spear: Your youth, your manhood, The reticence of your everlasting revelation. I too am become a cunning eye Seeking you past your time-gnawed surface, Seeking you back to hyacinths upon a dropping hill, Where legend drowses in a glaze of sea.

Yours are the eyes of a bull and a panther, For all that they are chiselled out and the sockets empty. You—perfectly imperfect, Clothed in a garden, In innumerable gardens, Borrowing the eyes of fruits and flowers—And mine also, cold, impossible god, So that I stare back at myself And see myself with loathing.

A quince-tree flings a crooked shadow—My shadow, tortured out of semblance, Bewildered in quince boughs. His shadow is clear as a scissored silhouette. Heat twinkles and the eyes glare. And I, of the mingled shadow, I glareAnd see nothing.