The thoughts came to him like long lines
of freight,
a convoy of supplies before the battle.
They came to him in order, one by one,
and while he was unloading them, he
thought
them out in sentences, in neat array.
The shots were commas, full stops, dots
above
the i’s. The earth exploded just when they
had crusted silently my wounds of love.
And in the spring, he felt his fingers tingle,
like branches of a tree, with blossoming,
and he prepared for fruit But in the fall,
twice wounded in his legs, twisting, he fell
to earth; like Balaam, falling, could foretell
the story of my days, and sang the blessing.
_____________