Savannah

For Bee Close Lane

Not quite diaphanous, not Spanish,
not a moss, weft after weft
depends from chambered
rafterings of liveoak,
green square leading
to green square, from
opening to opening, as
in a courtship—at whose
discovered center leaps
this rose-leaf
relinquishment,
this falling.
Yes.
To fall. To ripen
and then wither.
That is all.
Oh, not all
at all. The bed-curtained,
quickening and ripening
dream of the body,
of fair women, torn
by an obelisk
to the Confederate dead:
the ramparts breached,
the powder magazine’s
uproar, the maimed,
sullen giving way,
inform these
mansionings.
A stillness
out there, past thicketings
of juniper, bullbrier
and yaupon, flailed
thrashings of palmetto,
out past the hiss
of cordgrass:
enveloping
the drop- sleeve
creak of shrimp boats,
a dim, large,
smothering,
incessant
shrug.