« THIRD TRY AT THE MOTHER HOUSE »

Third pacing it off, third giving it up, time now to get the house-

the plumage that covers the month, enshadows thigh and yearhip,

good plumage and sunrise-frown when they went away.

This is for your own good: "You, island; you, mangrove; you,

queen cottonmouth,

go quite slow, sunflower at right hand always."

And she who scrutinizes everything, who sews up rips in the sky,

the iguana's flaws, and goes forward quite deliberately

between virgin beeswax draperies wearing studs in autumn.

Third time, third going out from the pages

spooking the white horse, embanking cloudbones,

arms open so as not to fall over themselves. And the time is doled

out.

Packets are assembled and laid out in blue-collar trades.

Three by three the fabric, three by three the yards of fabric,

drawings on the belly, good farmland stamped on the thighs.

For the third time (third try at the mother house), forward,

forward,

looking to stay put, to build a fire, to get rid of the smut of

former time,

to reduce the blossom to the size of the eternal. A solitary pledge:

To use the mirror to shut the eagle up in. O! gloomrose

upright in the image

dreamed.