We heeded the blood’s warm nudge, the arterial music
And chime of the nerve,
On a summer deck, with girls, in serious evening.
Leave it. Blood will not serve.
Bone was our friend, was good. Remember water
In bronze July?
The langorous dive, and the leather sports of autumn?
Leave it. Put the bone by.
Remember those delicate folk in a sea of Mozart,
The whorls of the ear?
Eye clever as glass with a perfect ship built inward?
Leave it. Bury it here.
Be naked as souls that float in the marbled pasture,
The peasant’s dread.
Untroubled by rain or love, gout, baldness, virtue,
The unafflictable dead.
Thoughtful, they move at night in the blasted hemlock
Limbs of pale light.
Having nothing to lose, they glide in the whirling traffic,
Never take fright.
Be daring as they, on land or the motored ocean
Or a glass-aluminum kite.
See squadrons fall like keys of a dark piano.
Unmoved. And thrive in the night.
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