Nine.
Tearing but not yet torn, this page the long late winter
rage, wild rain on the windshield,
clenched stems unyielding sticks of maple birch,
bleached grass, the range of things resisting change,
and this is how I am and this is how
you are when we resist the charmers open sesame,
the thief's light fingered touch staying
closed because we will not give ourselves away
until the agent, the manipulator,
the false toucher has left and it is May.