(1)

Two, close together (those two — or is it that one you see?)

Two copies only, double-space as usual

around a chasm unappeased by her blushing or by his pallor.

Two, alone; loneliness embitters the murmurings of confusion;

as though our office were common ground to them all —

in the clamorous desert, two alone.

The office rooms are distinguished by a style that joins modernity to simplicity, marred only by the fierceness of the heat when noon parades on, rank after rank. Within the bald walls, two tables and two chairs newly arrived from America, and a typewriter

The moon was not full, and the night had no moon,

and the time was not night.

And when the gentle flood swept through the room, the great window was shut, and the fluorescent lamp was lit

The carpet of grass vanished,

and vanished the two who lay upon it —

the east wind carried it off with her.

Handsome in shape, those American chairs, but they are not comfortable

An arm, and an embrace — yes,

and *** — truly, or was it a collision?

And the two were gone.

In the next room the waterfall roared

(2)

An arm? A breast?

!

Honey

?

!

The lips have their paint, and onion in the mouth its fragrance

were the two lips to be torn.

"My first kiss," he repeated;

you sly one, she said to him — as though you, at her age, would say

and the prize of the year.

Cut short, he saw it in his inmost self,

not grafted with life.

And tomorrow a new anecdote will be written, and I shall take

and the day it was grafted with life

leanness showed upon the mare.

What is the matter? Speak — or was it not enough

(3)

And will he embrace again,

and will he say again

?

!