And So the Skin . . .

And so their pounded hearts
were worn—
like a badge
or talisman
that canceled
almost all their blindness—

creation's linkage depending
on a drive itself
derived from a kind of kindness
or desperation, the sense that one's
inadequate,
at any rate

the space for time—

water has it, flowing
(even from a faucet . . . )
and here the black swan glides across it—

as the sunlight's suddenly on my back,
and now the skin along it's warmer,
Lord,
which lets me walk by the river. . . .