to see you, oh people, running, crying . . .
I cried, "Oh where are you going
and what do you flee from?  Where is
the terror over you shoulder and
what calamity could have struck
our unfair city?"

You answered in uneven tears,
"We have seen crustaceans whose
fate it is to adorn the plates of
celebrity feasts!  And we have seen
babies flailing as lobsters would have
done, on wet countertops lifted
by a mysterious hand from
other worlds beyond the water.
Oh, that way is the withering of minds."

Yes, I see it now!  A June bug still
silver-green with armor fit for battle-
kings of your kind
but strewn among wet leaves, on his
back, facing the sky:  Oh, my June bug,
are you dead or only dying?  And crying
I slew that which had given birth to the
rancors of my mind

Indeed that was the time in my life
when nothing could comfort me but the
waxing of the moon -- white as a cloud,
blue sky, Autumn afternoon -- when
frozen blues were not yet painted on
my man's lips, cheeks, nor fingertips,
but only the golden sun, making paper
colors of fast and fallen leaves, the

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16 Renford Road
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