IV
from
AFTERWORD (1998)
Since January, by forty days
the world is poorer.
Butting the lifeless dug
of she-wolf or of ewe,
those forty days suck out
your absence from it.
Lamb bleats no more; and wolf has ceased to howl.
The world has fallen silent.
No mouse scratches across the wood.
Quiet everywhere.
A flock of crows outside.
Ink clotting on the nib.
Snow on tabletop marble.
White paper white.
8 March 1996