And yet one arrives somehow,
finds himself loosening the hooks of
her dress
in a strange bedroom–
feels the autumn
dropping its silk and linen leaves
about her ankles.
The tawdry veined body emerges
twisted upon itself
like a winter wind. . .!

An old willow with hollow branches
slowly swayed his few high bright tendrils
and sang:

Love is a young green willow
shimmering at the bare wood’s edge.

Fool,
put your adventures
into those things
which break ships–
not female flesh.

Let there pass
over the mind
the waters of
four oceans, the airs
of four skies!

Return hollow-bellied
keen-eyed, hard!
A simple scar or two.

Little girls will come
bringing you
roses for your button-hole.

It’s all in
the sound. A song.
Seldom a song. It should

be a song–made of
particulars, wasps,
a gentian–something
immediate, open

scissors, a lady’s
eyes–waking
centrifugal, centriperal

It’s a strange courage
you give me ancient star:

Shine alone in the universe
toward which you lend no part!

The fragility of the flower
unbruised
penetrates space.

Nude bodies like peeled logs
sometimes give off the sweetest
odor, man and woman

under the trees in full excess
matching the cushion of

aromatic pine-drift fallen
threaded with trailing woodbine
a sonnet might be made of it

Might be made of it! odor of excess
odor of pine needles, odor of
peeled logs, odor of no odor
other than trailing woodbine that

has no odor, odor of nude woman
sometimes, odor of man.