xxxxix.

Marc Chagall died in 1985

and it makes me happy

to see—

after the blue windows went

up in the cathedral, and the man in his hat

and the woman in the dress floated

past the village,

the grey green hills fade

into the smoke—

by then, the world was

open, once more.

xxxxxviii.

              there is no help

coming, not for you—

not for anyone,

no siren ever sang,

             before someone

had come within

touch—

of the fall

I would fall through the floor,

if I could,

gravity, the bitter handmaiden

of illusion, carry me

through the tile—

I would give all my summers

for one fall, ending in flight.

xxxxxvi.

don’t

            don’t

don’t tell me

            that

don’t tell me

that,

you—don’t tell me

that you—

must it be—that

must we

            become

if we

are to receive

what—

            --if it was promised

must it be that

to receive what

we were promised

must it—

don’t tell me that you must go

go—