The self on tiptoes sneaking away from the self.

And thislast second or two of dreamingin which your facereturns to me completely. Noteven needing to be, beingso alive again to me.

and a tablein a kitchenat whichthe nightingales feasted on fairy tales,the angels stuffed themselves with fog

The wind has toppled the telescopeover onto the lawn:So much for stars.Your brief shot at the universe, gone.

The physical universe and its buzzing machinery, its fantastical scenery.

Believable, chronological, but so quickly erased that it only serves to prove that the universe is made of curving, warping space.

Like a twentieth-century dream of Europe—allhorrors, and pastries—some part of me, for all timestands in a short skirt in a hospital cafeteria line, with a tray, whilein another glittering tower namedfor the world's richest manmy mother, who is dying, never dies.

July, that lovely hell, allvelvet dresses and drapesstuffed into a hot little hole.

I am the impossibility of desiringthe person you pity. And the petal of the Easter lily—