And So the Skin . . .

And so their pounded hearts

were worn—

                                       like a badge

                  or talisman,

that canceled   

almost all their blindness—

creation's linkage depending

                                    on a drive itself

         derived from a kind of kindness

or desperation, the sense that one's

inadequate,

                                    at any rate

the space for time—

water has it, flowing   

(even from a faucet . . .)

and here the black swan glides across it—

as the sunlight's suddenly on my back,

and now the skin along it's warmer,

Lord,   

                  which lets me walk by the river . . .