My Own Devices

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Seeing the world through a shade
Found in a cleft of yellowwhite stone two men speak
Through sun-kissed locks a photograph is taken
I am reversed and comfortable in the obscure
Chamber imagining conversations of a few thousand
Years ago, and further back to the prelingual
Interaction accomplished by pointing back & forth
Between a fountain and a child at play
Between a fountain and a tawny wolf
Running ahead of an oaken wolf, a venus figurine
Carrying fruits & rubber of the wild
Trees not yet known obliquely, but directly
From the jungle, from the grassland stretching
Tendrils through December gray & out the other side
To deliver all imaginable variety of costume & temperament
Clerk, student, caged animal, strong bones becoming
Contrary jelly. My mother has called out to me
My temples are veined with pressure of young July
I can only point back & forth between a fountain
& myself a fountain & myself a fountain & all the while
Pearls drip down to Earth through a tangled bush

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