al

For I have known them all already,
known them all,
I have known the mornings, evenings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,
I have heard the voices dying
with a dying fall
beneath the music from a further room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already,
known them all,
eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase
and when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
when I am pinned and wriggling against the wall
how should I begin to spit out all the butt-ends
of my days and ways?
So how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already,
known them all,
arms that are braceleted, white and bare
(but in the lamp light downed with light brown hair!)
Is is perfume from a dress
that makes me so digress?
Arms that lie accross a table
or wrap about a shawl.
So should I now presume?
And how should I begin?

...

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
scuttling across the floors of silent seas.