Ruby winged pains flash through me,
Jewel winged agonies: 
They vanish,
Carrying me with them
Without my knowing it.

II

Pain sends out long tentacles
And sucks. 
When I have given up struggling
He takes me into his arms.

ISOLATION WARD

We are the separate centers of consciousness
Of all the universes. 
We vibrate statically on a trillion golden wires. 
Our trillion golden fingers twine in the weltering darkness,
And grasp tremblingly,
Aware in agony
Of the things we can never know.

THE RED CROSS

Antiseptic smells that corrode the nostrils
Crumble me,
Eat me deep;
And my garments disintegrate: 
First my nightgown,
Leaving my naked arms and legs disjointed,
Sprawled about the bed in postures meaningless to the point of
     obscenity.

My breasts shrivel,
The nipples drawn like withered plums
To the eyes of the bright young nurse. 
I am nothing but a dull eye myself,
An eye out of a socket,
Bursting,
Contorted with hideous wisdom.

Eye to eye
We fight in the death throes,
Myself and the young nurse. 
Her firm, crisp aproned bosom
Leans toward the bed,
As she smooths the rumpled pillow back
With long cool fingers.

HOSPITAL NIGHT

I am Will-o’-the-Wisp. 
I float in a little pool of delirium,
Phosphorescent velvet. 
My fire is like a breath
That blows my illness in circles,
Widening it so far
That I cannot see the edge. 
It is one with the night sky. 
My fire has blown this vastness,
But I strain and flicker trying to escape from it. 
I want to exist without the darkness
That makes my breath so bright. 
I want the morning to thin my light.

DOMESTIC CANTICLE

SPRING SONG

Sap crashes suddenly through dead roots: 
Sap that bites,
Harsh,
Impatient,
Bitter as gold.

My God, my sisters, how dark, how silent, how heavy is earth! 
Shoulders strain against this eternity,
Against the trickling loam. 
Earth dropped on the heart like a nerveless hand: 
On the red mouth
Earth coils,
Heavy as a serpent. 
Light has come back to the darkness,
To the shadow,
To the coolness of blackened leaves.

HOME AGAIN

Where I used to be
I could hear the sea. 
The black ragged palm fronds flung themselves against
     the twilight sky. 
The moon stared up from the water like a fish’s eye. 
I had the loneliness that sings. 
It made me light and gave me wings.