but it also travels: I see its traces
far from the hills where I was raised,
fitful light brooding over a horizon
that still has the look of a citadel,
or a rampart whose solitude is never
to be scaled. I feel its fingers
grope the edges of my night-shirt
so in my sleep I pant and sweat
like a horse heaving through fog-
threaded trails, its nose pressed
toward the rumor of heat or fire.
And in the misleading calm of daytime,
I hear its ongoing recitations: gold-
laced, a psalm on the lips of bees.