I am too close for him to dream of me. I don't flutter over him, don't flee him beneath the roots of trees. I am too close. The caught fish doesn't sing with my voice. The ring doesn't roll from my finger. I am too close.

Our snakes have shed their lightning, our apes their flights of fancy, our peacocks have renounced their plumes. The bats flew out of our hair long ago. We fal…

My cry could only waken him. And what a poor gift: I, confined to my own form, when I used to be a birch, a lizard shedding times and satin skins in many shimm…

They were or they weren't. On an island or not. An ocean or not an ocean Swallowed them up or it didn't.