A solid trestle table stands at a window,
some sheets of paper, a pen, a white ceramic pot with a 
      few deep-red asters.
It’s early morning, summer, 

there’s light over the lawn, but not yet shadow. I 
can’t hold still. Already I’ve left the house for coffee. 
I’ve driven over the mountains

to be with a river that lies down on a thousand foot deep aquifer.
For a while, no words. Numb with cold,
I put my clothes back on. I can’t live in nakedness.

Death is always already there in the room of writing (not a lover),
a grandmother, or a nurse. There is
that untranslatable medicinal smell from childhood.

And all the while
the words are keeping busy,
good ants.