A car was coming to pick her up.
In order not to waste moments, Louise was making a fuss
with a feather duster, plumage relieved from a pheasant.
She was making a most unpleasant mess,
banishing dust motes from light-laden beams.
She stopped to slip
the canary bird back in its cage,
remodeling its feathers with the back of her fingers.
Nothing in nature alarmed her.
A bow in the shape of a butterfly festooned her blunt cut.
Last night she had fainted, revived in time
to see a fixed star flickering behind the frill
of four green fronds banded together
by a cheap rubber band. The faint had been a falling,
sudden and tender as the doctor in leather
. . .
who crossed the room to come to her aid. He said he knew
all about critical care and the way lungs let air in and out.
Today, the temperature had declined
in the wake of a heat wave. Dawn had been admirably mired
in a message meant only for her. Here, it said, fall here.
Into love’s sweet looking glass.