I.

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

II.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.

III.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

When sidelong rays reach deep 
into the house, objects turn 
unbearably distinct and I think 

of girlhood, how the sinking golden light 
had to be seized, like the last 
mouthful of soda in a warm can shared 

with my sister. Whether I wanted to or not, 
I climbed higher in the tree, higher 
than I even liked, to watch the back door 

where my mother would appear
and call me in. For years now
a supper made by someone else 

is all I want, but this late sun 
keeps pressing in. The linen chair 
beside the window looks more 

salmon-hued and woven now 
than at noon. And the not-chair 
stretches long beside it. Shadows

sharpen and themselves become
objects filling the room. A child wakes
down the hall. Light gathers on the faces

of ranunculus in a mantle vase, 
browning and collapsing 
in their centers. I think I have been 

sad every afternoon of my life.
Outside a child runs in the grass. 
Soon I will appear and call her to me.

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.
Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine
in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,
a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways
I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least
fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative
estimate, though I keep this from my children.
For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.
For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,
sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world
is at least half terrible, and for every kind
stranger, there is one who would break you,
though I keep this from my children. I am trying
to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,
walking you through a real shithole, chirps on
about good bones: This place could be beautiful,
right? You could make this place beautiful.