27
To Fran
Out in the rain all afternoon
hands and neck chilled --
some trouble, anger
and late supper, the rain
smacking and clicking
outside the room
plenty of chablis
our sparse refl ections
on the black window glass
where space comes pouring in
all the way in
from between the stars, in past the blacked-out moon --
desolately it enters the room
and streams around your shoulders
without harm -- how curious --
and enters my grizzled beard
stopping when it arrives
at the skin warmth --
it must be we belong in it -- at once remotely
and intimately; the way a sheepherder's fi re at night belongs
in the distance on a desert upland