Infinity lifted: a gasp of emeralds. I thought I felt the tall night trees between them, no exactitude, a wait not even known yet. I held my violet up; no smell. It made a signal squeak inside, bats, lisps of pride; ah, their little things, their breath: lungs of a painting, they swept me in four ways, their square plans, as I have made a good square saying, you I you not-I not-you I not-you not-I, ritual of hope whose weight has not been measured—
From Cascadia by Brenda Hillman. Copyright © 2001 by Brenda Hillman. Reprinted with permission of Wesleyan University Press.