U.S.

Stone worn
Overgrown
Pristine thorns
Sheep shorn
Tinkling below
Roofless walls
Rooks overlook
I told you so
Babbles the brook

Here and there
White hairs appear
On my chest —
Age seasons me
Gives me zest —
I am a sage
In the making
Sprinkled, shaking

In their doorways women sit sewing
By the good light of afternoon
And nothing is beyond knowing
Though the sun shall go down soon

A shepherdess near a bramble ditch
And the Princess in the Alcazar
Keep the same precise stitch
And they both can see far

And when the knell tolls
All are wondering who —
If it is a lady, many bells
For a beggar, one will do

So they stood
Upon ladders
With pruning hooks
Backs to the king
Who took his leave
Of gardening

This morning
I am forlorn
As he was then
No one born
After the war
Remembers when

The niche narrows
Hones one thin
Until his bones
Disclose him

His body ahead
Of him on the bed
He faces his feet
Sees himself dead,
A corpse complete
With legs and chest
And belly between
Swelling the scene
Of the crime you left,
Taking your time,
Angel of Death

Water opens without end
At the bow of the ship
Rising to descend
Away from it

Days become one
I am who I was

more than the black
which it displaces —
Upon any fine day
I jump these traces

The kids fighting
over 4 or 5 pennies
my ears ringing
bent to the shape
of   the spring moon I
am a crybaby

The present tense
is the body’ s past tense
here; hence
the ghost sludge of hands
on the now gray strip
of towel hanging limp
from the jammed dispenser;
hence the mirror
squinting through grime
at grime, and the worn-
to-a-sliver of soiled soap
on the soiled sink.
The streaked bowl,