15

 
Blue-grey flame   beneath a crown of golden straw
and the horsehair   held in Lippo's fingers leaps
the traces   racing after her   who is   resting
so still   in her eyelash-curved   wave (folded

 
over itself)   closed lid of myrrh-box   purr
of the murmur   whirr of well-oiled wheel
hum of milk train   passing the jeweled
field   at dawn   (sound of river R)

 
and the lift of the wave (from Diana-moon)
like the green crest   of a fiddlehead,   or
an arc of spray   from Fontegaia
copper spring uncoiling   (moss-green

 
coin)   a silvered nine (or silver mine)
a rain of pennies   in the children's books
(uttering the sun)   where the willows   shake
their shade   over the stream   of early time

 
O my agate   gate   where I creak   transfixed
in the wind   out of ----   &   (lipped by the curl
of your magnet smile)   Where now is the whorl
of original spring?   In the wood   of my myrrh-

 
box   the streaming grain   of the stream
comes   itinerant   steeled in the hold   &
buoyant   floats   the acacia   toward the delta
doubling round the final bend, your   salty palm   fans

 
open         to trace   an almond there
(ancient flotation sign)   Mississippi Miss. ms.
Papyrus   unrolling   from further south
toward the mouth   lifted   into gypsy (stolen) air

[note : 1st stanza refers to a small painting of Mary Magdalen (attributed to Lippo Memmi) in the RISD Museum, Providence.]