Lament for clavier 

The sweet orderliness of hair. The music

of comb and soft brush. The universe

following its own score. Does anyone know

the number of hairs on a nation’s head?
Or a single child’s head? Who does the counting?
The sword? The scissors? The razor? Who tidies

the loose tresses and arranges them into strands

that part and fall across the ears and shoulders?

Who sets the earth on fire? Who slices flesh

Into silence? 

Let us comb that hair and brush it.

Let it be plaited or knotted or swept from the face.
Let there be a counting of heads and hair.
It will be well-tempered music, perfectly tuned,

Emerging from order, brushed as the wind brushes.
 

Dream of Diving

She was half asleep when she slipped

Under the water, and kept sinking

Until she met him about his business

At the very bottom. 
 

This was her sleep and it was what she wanted,

Or dreamt she wanted, and she wanted it

To be so because she thought she could hear

How own voice echoed back to her. 
 

And the voice was sleep or something whispered

In sleep, like the sound of sheets drawn tight

About a body, or water slipping away down a shore

Into its own peculiar element.

But something was wrong as if she had awakened

And time too had woken and started rattling through

The morning, past the body next to her, past

Anything that can lose its name.