And here, the remains of a field

A path withstands the onslaught of ferns
Mushrooms grow
on contorted limbs of a felled rônier palm
Handles of pruning hooks

I want only to be a worn-down stone
on the ruins of time,

I’ll go plant the tree of my grief
in the wetlands
of silence close to her grave

I’ll live in lantana
shrubs

Imagine, the grace of these children! 
We are in the sun. What elapses 
is history. Do you ever move? 

Fast fella, cough it up, five cents more please. 
Faster, this crap’ll kill you, like anything else 
as you cruise toward the bridge, 

I don’t mean to rank you out
as some kind of Haitian Sex Goddess
or Virtuous piece of Crescent trash,

sadness passes 
and madness passes 
away and the train 

I lift my cone to hers
As if drinking a toast.
Her pink tongue, like a cat’s,

Powder-blue, deckle-edged,
And worn with fingering, 
A batch of letters, filed 

A woman of wool lies on a couch covered with pale shawls.
The way it holds her, she and the couch are almost one.
Cold fingers the shawls but she is warm. Though gravely ill.