1.
You carry a saucer of clear water,
Smelling faintly of lemon, that spills
Into the dark roots of what
Was I saying? Hurt or dance, the stunned
Hours, arguments for and against:
There’s a tap here somewhere.
2.
This dream: on white linen, in the high ceilinged room,
Marie and Julia had spread baskets of focaccia,
A steaming zucchini torte, ham in thin, almost deliquescent slices,
Mottled ovals of salami, around a huge bowl in which chunks of
crabmeat,
With its sweet, iodine smell of high tide, were strewn
Among quarter moons of sun-colored tomatoes and lettuce leaves
Of some species as tender-looking as the child’s death had been.
3.
If there is a way in, it may be
Through the corolla of the cinquefoil
With its pale yellow petals,
In the mixed smell of dust and water
At trailside in the middle reaches of July.
Soft: an almost phospher gleam in twilight.