The evidence was in and it went to the contrary.
The contrary wound around us rather like a river.
The river reacted, spider-like, tangling up its legs
with other wet parts we thought we knew,
such as creeks and fjords and deltas and such.
A beaver sits on the riverbank watching all of this unfold.
He doesn’ t know what a fjord is, and he doesn’ t care
for other waters, or even other beavers, or the merest
hint of other business, so he removes this evidence.
Had to come in out of the people,
they blew me about so.
Was told of the life taking place
elsewhere. Went to check on that,
flying late and low over the west.
Saw no house, no shade.
Sat down on the damp bank
on the far shore at the left
edge of the world, against which
the sea endlessly lapped.
So now there were two of us,
who beat the world by
day and caressed it by night
and the world didn’ t say
yea and she didn’ t say nay.
Last night in bed
I mouthed a prayer
of my own composition.
It sounded offhand, it was carelessly
addressed, it twisted my meaning
entirely, it left an ache,
I didn’ t know what I was doing.
So I took down my yellowed copy
of French With Pictures
by the late literary critic I. A. Richards
and I put my petition
into soft French words.
Two women on a train
sit beside me.
I am young and the world
is flying and I am watching.
One of them is frosty.
The other turns like a leaf
to hand me something —
it looked for all the world like a page.
I thought at the time
that it needed me and I was right.
The letters fell into place
and simple flowers grew.
Now it talks unceasingly
in long white verses
as if at a wedding,
something women understand
and gently want and then regift.
I myself agree with Herbert,
