SIX RONDEAUX

          As I taste it's warm almost hot
          If quiet I can hear as well as see
          A woman chopping celery in a bright
          Kitchen from the back window
          But she doesn't see me watching
          Her movements are precise and quickly
          She has everything laid out        One must
          Learn how to cook or how to drink tea
          As I taste as if I were made
          Only of the ability to taste
          As if I were taught to stop with tea
          And to wait to turn on the lights
          By one whose experience retains heat
          Like a day that was warm or a cup
          As I taste it seems to stay hot
          I lay for hours undisturbed
          By sleep inclined to count
          As one does hours opportunities
          Ours have been few as they
          Are until I will seem up
          I will certainly be out
          But it's absurd to sing in the dark
          Or to lie quivering unable to see
          I lay just so last night
          And now had hoped but the rest
          Exactly the same numbers
          Begin by counting themselves over
          Against my waking I would have it
          Having nothing else to save
          I lay the hours by waking

                              •

          Why am I divided from him?
          A continuous line begins with the brow
          And becomes the nose by agreement
          A piece of linen simplifies
          The features of its women like
          Masks or any other kind of quiet
          A beautiful arrangement by convention
          Only if accepted or if not
          Why am I divided thoughtlessly?
          A stylised head bisecting two scenes
          Of life or its embroidered equivalent
          House man clouds a child suspended from
          Parentheses that by balancing unite and yet
          Why am I silent in the foreground divided?
          So then as I say I begin again
          These days it's always four a.m.
          Before I drop off the night's morning
          Almost and almost dusk and time
          To begin again and again I've missed
          The morning approached wrong-
          Endedly but then if one end is more
          What you want to do then do so
          So then offering itself begins with
          And remains awake tilted up until
          Blood runs to the eyes and it's time to consider
          How like any of our mornings is this dusk
          The beginning and how I began to say
          I begin again exactly as when before claiming
          So then as I say I begin I began again

                              •

          Let's stay or you said go
          Someone running not unusual
          To have to go to work at dawn
          Glad for the job happily gone
          So let them take our places
          And not as we did go but stay
          An hour completely red not
          Reckless though unearthly
          Let's stay you were so
          Flushed the way a night will
          Make you vague and permeable
          Nonsense that you or I should be
          En route       Look someone running
          Away and not unhappy to
          Let's stay but you said no
          Because I have you still kept from lies
          And blame having you for your stillness
          Always coldest and only just standing
          The presence by your door about to enter
          Or about not to of one lame or otherwise
          Imperfect standing afraid speechless before
          Some crossing he might have accomplished easily
          Before waking in a new situation freshly alone
          Because I have kept you from lies we might
          Have told and have kept myself quiet
          The gestures of our falseness
          Words actually spoken won't be
          A source later of pain because that time has come
          Because there it lies cold quite settled now and
          Because I don't want to keep you from going home