Love Lies Sleeping

Earliest morning, switching all the tracks

that cross the sky from cinder star to star,

       coupling the ends of streets

       to trains of light.

now draw us into daylight in our beds;

and clear away what presses on the brain:

       put out the neon shapes

       that float and swell and glare

down the gray avenue between the eyes

in pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.

       Hang-over moons, wane, wane!

       From the window I see

an immense city, carefully revealed,

made delicate by over-workmanship,

       detail upon detail,

       cornice upon facade,

reaching up so languidly up into

a weak white sky, it seems to waver there.

       (Where it has slowly grown

       in skies of water-glass

from fused beads of iron and copper crystals,

the little chemical "garden" in a jar

       trembles and stands again,

       pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)

The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.

Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.

       "Boom!" and the exploding ball

       of blossom blooms again.

(And all the employees who work in a plants

where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"

       turn in their sleep and feel

       the short hairs bristling

on backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.

A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.

       Along the street below

       the water-wagon comes

throwing its hissing, snowy fan across

peelings and newspapers.  The water dries

       light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern

       of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strike

from stony walls and halls and iron beds,

       scattered or grouped cascades,  

       alarms for the expected:

queer cupids of all persons getting up,

whose evening meal they will prepare all day,

       you will dine well

       on his heart, on his, and his,

so send them about your business affectionately,

dragging in the streets their unique loves.

       Scourge them with roses only,

       be light as helium,

for always to one, or several, morning comes

whose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,

       whose face is turned

       so that the image of

the city grows down into his open eyes

inverted and distorted.  No.  I mean

       distorted and revealed,

       if he sees it at all.