Collected Poems

I broke at last

the terror-fringed fascination

that bound my ancient gaze

to those crowding faces

of plunder and seized my

remnant life in a miracle

of decision between white-

collar hands and shook it

like a cheap watch

in my ear and threw it down

beside me on the earth floor

and rose to my feet. I

made of their shoulders

and heads bobbing up and down

a new ladder and leaned

it on their sweating flanks

and ascended till midair

my hands so new to harshness

could grapple the roughness of a prickly

day and quench the source

that fed turbulence to their

feet. I made a dramatic

descent that day landing

backways into crouching shadows into potsherds of broken trance. I

flung open long-disused windows

and doors and saw my hut

new-swept by rainbow brooms

of sunlight become my home again

on whose trysting floor waited

my proud vibrant life.