Fanny Howe: Second Childhood (3)

You see them through the slats
and crack of the open window.
A cold rain.  Leaves flipped
and palsied.

 

The river is brown near

the sand, loose banks and twigs

stick at the edge and a lilac

resembles its scent.

 

How in the dark hole can you hide

if you can't get outside?

 

*

 

You are learning how to be a unit

with an infinite in its attic.

 

It's not difficult.  

 

Light is the last necessity.

 

*

 

White streaks like oil paint

are the first to appear along the wet railing.

 

The coincidence of colors

meeting by chance:

 

code for salvation.

 

*

 

You would rather be (die) with total strangers than with partial ones,

you said to yourself in the elevator going down. 

It was the only time that day that you were as alone as you were awake.