“A.S.”

I

All of you no doubt have felt
the soft sleep, the sweetest dizziness
easing you down on the bed
and then the tree, the bark, the algae,
the eyes don’t turn away
and the vials are no longer theatening
in the chiaroscuro of the afternoon
as a thousand animals
surround the stretcher, block the nurses
the labored breathing becoming more and more shallow
in the frosted windows
of the ambulance, the windowsill of a floor
appears, the interval
that releases the living
and makes them race with the current in the pupils,
sparkling at the moment of the offer.
And suddenly, the quiet
of the vineyard and the well, the smooth stone
tearing the flesh
a calm deep within the grain
as the woman on the field gives birth
more and more slowly,
until the son returns in the fecundation
and earlier still, in the kiss, in the glimmer
of a room, the large mirror,
growing desire, the gesture.