A Sense of the World.


    "Afternoon

The fear of afternoon
Is called afternoon
Old sleep uptorn,
Not yet time for night-time,
No other name, for no names
In the afternoon but afternoon.

Love tries to speak but sounds
So close in its own ear.
The clock-ticks hear
The clock-ticks ticking back.
The fever fills where throats show,
But nothing in these horrors moves to swallow
While thirst trails afternoon
To husky sunset.

Evening appears with mouths
When afternoon can talk.
Supper and bed open and close
And love makes thinking dark.
More afternoons divide the night,
New sleep uptorn,
Wakeful suspension between dream and dream--
We never knew how long.
The sun is late by hours of soon and soon--
Then comes the quick fever, called day.
But the slow fever is called afternoon."

--Riding


An Incomplete history of the Art of Funerary Violin.