Apiary II (Orphean)
She comes around the corner with a look of never
having tasted honey salt bread: knowing no one:
her walking inconclusive—briefest glimmer
like a sweet array of plucked lute notes
then disappearance.
Would that you could once again tense to her tensing
—you aren’t my natural daughter—
so that your inmost self was with her
and she felt herself somewhere: if only in this dark hallway:
paper orange blossoms: mazily repeated:
As if passed on by roads and rivers or having been
looked at over a betraying shoulder:: She cannot stay.
