ghost

the smell of smoke

and windows falling in rivulets

the streets, rushing in streams

of false-water,

shimmering in the sun

my beloved is dead

spun so furiously that

she flung herself over the ridges

and the blue shade,

rolling down the slopes

is her shadow

and the spark, where the road

turns at the summit

is the glint in her eye

but that strange, compact body

which twisted and rose

which moved of itself

that was for gripping

has flown apart

and settled over the ground

I will scatter my words,

and sing a lullaby in the daylight

with the moon hanging low

under the bristling palms

and the pepper trees dropping

their seeds in the dust.

it seems I am staring

out across the valley

from between her rib-bones

that the hazy ridges rise

under the curve of her knee

and her skin has gone

to cover the roof-tops

and what was beneath it

fills the streets,

teeming under the branches

but she holds the sky in her bones.