every man in the crowd has the same face.
high places fall from the sky. The women
squat on the platform timidly. They
worry about the level of the sea; the
sea was never a performer to me. It has always
been a huge midwife over the opening waiting for
an effigy of the world to be born. If these
women bore love today, the crowd would tear
the infants to pieces right after birth.

early that morning, the boat was brought
in through the waves; who knows how long
it had been out there.

do you think that the moment will happen when all 
is prepared — when the stage is set and the 
audience waits in its seats and the actresses
are in their places?

there is a delicate head in the personality that is
surrounded in myth. Whose consciousness has
established this interior? A billion memories
are blockaded inside the tunnels of the
ordinary world. Why attempt to swagger
through the rubble and escape into a finer cosmos? 
why bring this head to birth?

I left the crowd and the performers and went
down to the beach.
the waves were moving further up the sand, almost 
to the boat that had been left there.

as one who falls asleep covered up with 
sleek hawks,
I cannot feel you. I can only
feel the immense outline of expression that
surrounds your image. I am like
a quiet field that somehow escapes the convulsions 
passing through the flocks that smother it. 
a nervous king awakes at the extremity of 
a wave. I hear screams in my head for
he is a gigantic blossom fluttering in the abyss. 
still, I cannot feel you.

in the boat is a marble torso.
body without arms and legs;
body without a head . . .
one austere orchid in a dark tangle of
seaweed. It is the world, a
naked and defenseless extreme thing —
silent voyager from the intimate deep.

we rarely think of elemental life in this 
century.
even women in childbed are isolated. Now,
the ivy is grey and Christ, Himself is ornamental. 
broad immaculate seas cause dread and
even basic flesh is superficial.

you are an unborn child. Your hair is
whispers.
last night, I saw some kind of iridescent
animal pass before me. Its large eyes were 
unformed, innocent and malleable, like
yours.                   Still,
I cannot feel you; perhaps, it is better you
may never be born.