Edelweiss blooms for eyes and appleskin to caress,
morning rise to greet you, love to pluck. This is for me —
 
not the man at 12:30 who has been set into motion like a crayon
on the wall, being driven by a child’s hand. All we have is sleep
in our pores, a pollen scent. And your pistil uncurling straight
at me is but a clockfinger stopped. How we long for such still life,
 
slow as an oil painting that eats hours to dry. Minutes that flake
like the dust in our hair; we are the inanimate; we are the fruits
in a bowl of blanket where each mole, each blemish matters
less than what it means to be in frame. How soon men move
in the museum from one piece to the next.
 
May we stare into this life that continues itself
within these stiff boundaries of bedspread and windowshade,
squared and exact, ninety degrees, defying the thousand
mile per hour of our worldturn; even against the jacks
and marbles that make us up as we tumble out of bed,
rolling from toe to heel out of each other’s sight.