“Are the angels of her bed the angelswho come near me alone in mine?Are the green trees in her windowthe color is see in ripe plums?If she always sees backwardand upside down without knowing itwhat chance do we have? I am hauntedby the feeling that she is sayingmelting lords of death, avalanches,rivers and moments of passing through,And I am replying, "Yes, yes.Shoes and pudding.”

“DuendeI can't remember her name.It's not as though I've been in bedwith that many women.The truth is I can't even rememberher face. I kind of know how strongher thighs were, and her beauty.But what I won't forgetis the way she tore openthe barbecued chicken with her hands,and wiped the grease on her breasts.”

“Failing and Flying"Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.It's the same when love comes to an end,or the marriage fails and people saythey knew it was a mistake, that everybodysaid it would never work. That she was old enough to know better. But anythingworth doing is worth doing badly.Like being there by that summer oceanon the other side of the island whilelove was fading out of her, the stars burning so extravagantly those nights thatanyone could tell you they would never last.Every morning she was asleep in my bedlike a visitation, the gentleness in herlike antelope standing in the dawn mist.Each afternoon I watched her coming backthrough the hot stony field after swimming,the sea light behind her and the huge skyon the other side of that. Listened to herwhile we ate lunch. How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people whocame back from Provence (when it was Provence)and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,but just coming to the end of his triumph.”

“There was no water at my grandfather’swhen I was a kid and would go for itwith two zinc buckets. Down the path,past the cow by the foundation wherethe fine people’s house was beforethey arranged to have it burned down.To the neighbor’s cool well. Wouldcome back with pails too heavy,so my mouth pulled out of shape.I see myself, but from the outside.I keep trying to feel who I was,and cannot. Hear clearly the soundthe bucket made hitting the sidesof the stone well going down,but never the sound of me.”

“A DESCRIPTION OF HAPPINESS IN KOBENHAVN All this windless day snow fellinto the King's Gardenwhere I walked, perfecting and growing old,abandoning one by one everybody:randomly in love with the paradisefurnace of my mind. Now I sit in the dark,dreaming of a marble sunand its strictness. Thisis to tell you I am not coming back.To tell you instead of my private lifeamong people who must wrestle their heartsin order to feel anything, as though it wereunnatural. What I master by daystill lapses in the night. But I go onwith the cargo cult, blindly feeling the snowcome down, learning to flower by tightening.”

“Waking At NightThe blue river is grey at morningand evening. There is twilightat dawn and dusk. I lie in the darkwondering if this quiet in me nowis a beginning or an end.”

“The Abandoned ValleyCan you understand being alone so longyou would go out in the middle of the nightand put a bucket into the wellso you could feel something down theretug at the other end of the rope?”