OCR Text |
Show HH IV. I held you so tight your wrists wrinkled in my grasp- skin dried and bones powdered till I cupped a handful of white dust. Scattered around the stems of chokecherry, rain washed you deep. Roots absorbed your quiet kisses. I saw you grow: first, as white blossom; then, as bitter, dark fruit. Squirrels fed upon you- you leaped chattering through the limbs of fir trees. Birds swallowed the hard pits, you fled inevitably south, escaping my winter. When there was no trace of you in all the world, when I had been dead a million aching years, we sat at a morning table, smiling, sipping dark tea. (4th of 4 pp.) |