An Augury (an Elegy)

1.
A milk, a pure sweet milk, warmed
And skimmed with a sunburn discovered
In the early evening, peels away from the
Unborn flesh. This is familiar,
This is new.

2.
The days are melding together in a laundry pile of dust, sweat
And satisfaction.

3.
These days will soon be those days,
Memories of meals out, pervasive heat, yearning;
Of picnics in the shade, staircases, dusty books and shy
French; of not-enough, of too-much coffee,
Of heavy saturated tiredness.

4.
On wing-blade shoulder-blades you sit propped up, reading.

5.
Already aware
Of the present becoming the
Past in that too-near future, over there,
This has become a transcendence of time.

6.
To read, he says, propped up, because
It is not possible to stop

Because it is, we are, fantasists, dreamers,
Absent-minded glorifiers, because our pert noses are
All caught up in chapters and pages, Parsing
The sentence of solitude.