You are sick
and it's not your fault.

It is four pm.
It is the afternoon
giving away to evening
and you are sick
and it is not your fault.

It is four pm
and you don't feel well
and we don't feel well
and someone there
- who?
has stopped crying
a long time since

The taxis roll past
less frequently than they did
hours ago
in the night
when the music was up

up

and you knew,
dancing between books
dancing between phrases
of deep, considered truth

how beautiful
beautiful you were

Chapter One

One word at a time one can
get at it
get at it
get closer

the meaning settles onto an image
that asks to be described
- no this way, specific.
Be there.

What woods?
How cold?  How wet?
How wet below whose knees?
How like you -
that hair,
that youth, hope,
love of the air around
crawling there
quite actually
between fascism and freedom

between
between

the fern fronds
touch his cheeks

And who was that?

How like you?
 - like you
too much, or you like him.

And both like me.
[- Who said that!?]

Is it a face that reveals itself
or just again that dark wash of spirit
inside

that says,
write about me.
I will dictate:
I know you.
I have always known you.

He never really got through his forest.
And you.
You don't have a chance.

Write that.

Write that.

First person:
"I"