I Wonder Love Can Have

Heads In The Women's Ward On Pillow After Pillow Lies The Wild White Hair And Staring Eyes; Jaws Stand Open; Necks Are Stretched With Every Tendon Sharply Sketched; A Bearded Mouth Talks Silently To Someone No One Else Can See. Sixty Years Ago They Smiled At Lover, Husband, First-born Child. Smiles Are For Youth. For Old Age Come Death's Terror And Delirium.

Uncontradicting Solitude Supports Me On Its Giant Palm; And Like A Sea-anemone Or Simple Snail, There Cautiously Unfolds, Emerges, What I Am.

The Poetic Impulse Is Distinct From Ideas About Things Or Feelings About Things, Though It May Use These. It's More Like A Desire To Separate A Piece Of One's Experience & Set It Up On Its Own, An Isolated Object Never To Trouble You Again, At Least Not For A Bit. In The Absence Of This Impulse Nothing Stirs.

On Me Your Voice Falls As They Say Love Should, Like An Enormous Yes.

My Mother, Who Hates Thunderstorms, Holds Up Each Summer Day And Shakes It Out Suspiciously, Lest Swarms Of Grape-dark Clouds Are Lurking There.