Thoughts

I know I change have changed but whose is this vapid face pitted and vast, rotund suspended in empty paper as though in a telescope the granular moon I rise from my chair pulling against gravity I turn away and go out into the garden I revolve among the vegetables, my head ponderous reflecting the sun in shadows from the pocked ravines cut in my cheeks, my eye- sockets 2 craters among the paths I orbit the apple trees white white spinning stars around me I am being eaten away by light

Summoned by conscious recollection, she would be smiling, they might be in a kitchen talking, before or after dinner. But they are in this other room, the window has many small panes, and they are on a couch embracing. He holds her tightly as he can, she buries herself in his body. Morning, maybe it is evening, light is flowing through the room. Outside, the day is slowly succeeded by night, succeeded by day. The process wobbles wildly and accelerates: weeks, months, years. The light in the room does not change, so it is plain what is happening. They are trying to become one creature, and something will not have it. They are tender with each other, afraid their brief, sharp cries will reconcile them to the moment when they fall away again. So they rub against each other, their mouths dry, then wet, then dry. They feel themselves at the center of a powerful and baffled will. They feel they are an almost animal, washed up on the shore of a world— or huddled against the gate of a garden— to which they can’t admit they can never be admitted.