DAY 8

  There in the heat haze you are only a child,
your skirt wavering black bands of dust. And
the straw hat that you wear tilted back so that
the sun falls full on your face whistles softly
like the birds buried in your heart.

     Neither happiness nor unhappiness is
yours. You sift the sand through your shadow
fingers, counting the years, one two, three
four, five six, seven eight ...

Now there is only you, in the darkness or
the light, and the image you invent flees the
woman you are, and the woman you chase
invents the woman you flee. Now there is only
you, in the darkness of the light ...