That you would, one day, stop breathing before
My own breath was held.
Were I to wake, muffled through the balsam
Woods, scent of myrrh and mineral.
Would that be tonight.
That we had conducted ourselves with no austerity all along.
Nearer then, a child was a child herself, thin thing
Offering a teaspoonful of civet to the likes
Of us. Beneath the low sky lowering, unclear this time
Of year, you cannot tell
The salt lick from the pale and mackerel
Air around it. That I did not promise. I will never sleep.