Love Lies Sleeping

Earliest morning, switching all the tracksthat cross the sky from cinder star to star,        coupling the ends of streets        to trains of draw us into daylight in our beds;and clear away what presses on the brain:        put out the neon shapes        that float and swell and glaredown the gray avenue between the eyesin pinks and yellows, letters and twitching signs.        Hang-over moons, wane, wane!        From the window I seean immense city, carefully revealed,made delicate by over-workmanship,        detail upon detail,        cornice upon facade,reaching up so languidly up intoa weak white sky, it seems to waver there.        (Where it has slowly grown        in skies of water-glassfrom fused beads of iron and copper crystals,the little chemical "garden" in a jar        trembles and stands again,        pale blue, blue-green, and brick.)The sparrows hurriedly begin their play.

Then, in the West, "Boom!" and a cloud of smoke.        "Boom!" and the exploding ball        of blossom blooms again.(And all the employees who work in a plants where such a sound says "Danger," or once said "Death,"        turn in their sleep and feel        the short hairs bristlingon backs of necks.) The cloud of smoke moves off.

A shirt is taken of a threadlike clothes-line.        Along the street below        the water-wagon comesthrowing its hissing, snowy fan acrosspeelings and newspapers.  The water dries        light-dry, dark-wet, the pattern        of the cool watermelon.

I hear the day-springs of the morning strikefrom stony walls and halls and iron beds,        scattered or grouped cascades,          alarms for the expected:queer cupids of all persons getting up,whose evening meal they will prepare all day,        you will dine well        on his heart, on his, and his,so send them about your business affectionately,dragging in the streets their unique loves.        Scourge them with roses only,        be light as helium,for always to one, or several, morning comeswhose head has fallen over the edge of his bed,        whose face is turned        so that the image ofthe city grows down into his open eyesinverted and distorted.  No.  I mean        distorted and revealed,        if he sees it at all.