Adrienne Rich — Voyage to the Denouement

A child's hand smears a wall the reproof is bitter wall contrives to linger child, punisher, gone in smoke An artisan lays on hues: lemon, saffron, gold stare hard before you start covering the whole room Inside the thigh a sweet mole on the balding skull an irregular island what comes next After the burnt forests silhouettes wade liquid hibiscus air Velvet rubs down to scrim iron utensils discolor unseasoned Secret codes of skin and hair go dim left from the light too long Because my wish was to have things simpler than they were memory too became a smudge sediment from a hand repeatedly lying on the same surface Call it a willful optimism from when old ownerships unpeeled curled out into the still nameless new imperium Call it haplessness of a creature not yet ready for her world-citizen's papers (Across the schoolroom mural bravely small ships did under sail traverse great oceans) Rain rededicates the exhumed African burial ground traffic lashes its edges the city a scar a fragment floating on tidal dissolution The opal on my finger fiercely flashed till the hour it started to crumble