5, "April, the Sudden Heat."
"Into the trill and stutter of mockingbirds awake
at this wrong hour, all night, throats open, eyes wide,
I rouse to see a woman's face
I will never wear, moon pale, rising
against the viscid surface of a night, otherwise dark,
fretted by song.
I think of beginnings, new heat, one finger on a wrist,
the stark, wet instant of conception.
It is like thinking of you dead, your face stony, prophetic,
given over to long dreams, and some light, resinous,
fixing the shadows along your mouth in amber, or of myself
dead, long weeds wound around throat and fingers,
with pearls for eyes, and beyond the gray wakeful birds
thrilling crazily.
Epithalamia, at 2 o'clock and 3 o'clock."