Elliott Carter — O Breath

Beneath that loved and celebrated breast Silent, bored really blindly veined Grieves, maybe lives and lets Live, passes bets Something moving but invisibly And with what clamor why restrained I cannot fathom even a ripple (See the thin flying of nine black hairs Four around one five the other nipple Flying almost intolerably on your own breath.) Equivocal, but what we have in common's bound to be there Whatever we must own equivalents for Something that maybe I could bargain with And make a separate peace beneath Within if never with