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TWILIGHTS The big stones of the cistern behind the barn Are soaked in whitewash. My grandmother's face is a small maple leaf Pressed in a secret box. Locusts are climbing down into the dark green crevices Of my childhood. Latches click softly in the trees. Your hair is gray. The arbors of the cities are withered. Far off, the shopping centers empty and darken. A red shadow of steel mills. TWO HANGOVERS NUMBER ONE I slouch in bed. Beyond the streaked trees of my window, All groves are bare. Locusts and poplars change to unmarried women Sorting slate from anthracite Between railroad ties: The yellow-bearded winter of the depression Is still alive somewhere, an old man Counting his collection of bottle caps In a tarpaper shack under the cold trees Of my grave. I still feel half drunk, And all those old women beyond my window Are hunching toward the graveyard. Drunk, mumbling Hungarian, The sun staggers in, And his big stupid face pitches Into the stove. For two hours I have been dreaming Of green butterflies searching for diamonds 124 In coal seams; And children chasing each other for a game Through the hills of fresh graves. But the sun has come home drunk from the sea, And a sparrow outside Sings of the Hanna Coal Co. and the dead moon. The filaments of cold light bulbs tremble In music like delicate birds. Ah, turn it off. NUMBER TWO: I TRY TO WAKEN AND GREET THE WORLD ONCE AGAIN In a pine tree, A few yards away from my window sill, A brilliant blue jay is springing up and down, up and down, On a branch. I laugh, as I see him abandon himself To entire delight, for he knows as well as I do That the branch will not break. DEPRESSED BY A BOOK OF BAD POETRY, I WALK TOWARD AN UNUSED PASTURE AND INVITE THE INSECTS TO JOIN ME Relieved, I let the book fall behind a stone. I climb a slight rise of grass. I do not \vant to disturb the ants Who are walking single file up the fence post, Carrying small white petals, Casting shadows so frail that I can see through them. I close my eyes for a moment, and listen. The oldgrasshoppers Are tired, they leap heavily now, Their thighs are burdened. I want to hear them, they have clear sounds to make. Then lovely, far off, a dark cricketbegins In the maple trees. THE BRANCH WILL NOT BREAK 125 ...

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