Immortal Instant

The sniper at work over the street corner acts.

Two girls, breathless after the dash across,

radiate heat and bouquets, as when ironing

silken delicates. With one, in place of a chignon,

goosefleshed Christmas wheat. She explodes, rages,   

curses the sniper; at the window, seemingly,

I'm watching a beautiful storm. From the other, words

like a sun-umbrella's flutterings, in the morning,

on an Adriatic beach. Now and again, she flicks her head

back: just for us. As she well knows: flicked hair

sweetens the air. Beauty, always forthcoming, never   

misses a half-smile. As they well know: making us happy

costs them nothing. Those half-smiles saying

you aren't just one fact among others—not at all,

not for them—even banishing the hex of that fact

if any other woman's glacial look had magicked it up.

The air smelt strongly of my distant youth

when every boulevard led to the end of the world,   

when life was not yet "threadbare as a proverb."

Now they're going, leaving such tenderness in me

as engulfs you when looking too long at the heavens   

into which snowflakes are swarming.

So they disappeared chattering, not girls

but breezes, blown lightly, surprisingly,   

through the St. John's heat of siege. The St. John's heat   

of being.