There is a soul in me It is asking to be given its body It is asking to be given blue eyes a skull matted with black hair that shape already formed & detaching So the past put forth a house filled with asters & white lilac a child in her cotton dress the lawn, the copper beech— such of my own lives I have cast off—the sunlight chipping at the curtains & the wicker chairs uncovered, winter after winter, as the stars finally thicken & descend as snow