Set close, like birth pangs.
The absence of shrieks
made a hole in the hot day, a vacancy.
The glassy light was a clear wall,
The thickets quiet.

I felt a still busyness, an intent.
I felt hands round a tea mug, dull, blunt,
Ringing the white china.
How they awaited him, those little deaths!
They waited like sweethearts. They excited him.

And we, too, had a relationship——
Tight wires between us,
Pegs too deep to uproot, and a mind like a ring,
Sliding shut on some quick thing,
The constriction killing me also.