the closet

    . . . so you could not be

punished for not having tried;

that was the main thing . . .

and in the closet, with your

‘bad attitude’

you could make yourself fit anywhere:

into the crevice where winter begins

or the Y where the cypress

unbraids itself

or the plane where the shadow sees

just how to live: it hovers

underneath the sulphur butterfly.

The truth of the wound

is a narrow truth . . .

you could go like the worm

back to the pre-earth, stay there for years

fitting neatly against the sides,

come out with a double hope: first to enter

the room as a girl, let’s say,

—then, not to be recognized!