Dreaming with Verlaine and Chagall
Souvenir, souvenir, que me veux-tu?
Haven’t healed. Did I say that I would?
Did I say that I would be able to
push the color back in the pens,
the ink in the tubes? Sleep with it
in me? Did I say it, this spring?
This spring is too old, then, we have
had it before. Compared to us, not even
the eagles in their nests can change.
Not even the baby eagles, swooping down
terrifying the seraphim. Not even
the screaming bugles. Not even the lambs.
It’s all as we imagined it would be.
The field in flames. Running, the lambs.
Didn’t we say that they would be?