[For fury the Penitent may say]

For fury the Penitent may say, My Lord, if discretion

      be the better part of valor then let me

be the screen door, and beyond it, the parade

      rolling forth, heat and wheel, equal

among themselves, a same compressive thing,

      grandeur through the street.

But all things being equal, the heat the wheel—

      and this includes the heart—burn out

break down, what’s left. Not the quiet, it must

      be loud. It must answer to whatever

death by becoming whatever of it—not itself

      but something in the style of light if

light could be its sound, my tonguing like the

      clapper of a bell, its word worn round.

For sleep the Penitent will say, My Lord, make me

      the tributary, the canal, the sluice and its

solutions pouring out, the folio sheet halved and

      folded, the other body next to me, a lathe

turning over. I keep the world up with my

      raggedness. I try to shut the summer down.

I bellowed bead by bead, opaque, mother–

      strand, strung like fish, I did it twice.

O my mother, incorruptible, these words they

      rise to stand outside me, speak

against me like a heart I never recognize or see,

      me—make me the pain fixed to one place.

So For pain the Penitent—My Lord, just so, just so.

      Frontier becomes me and its place,

obediently cold. Glorify the lung, the nose that

      gives to it the pine. The unruly town

inside a forest, now dry. Glorify the eye and salt

      that gives to it the command. The silent

town beside the sea, its blue ebb. Glorify the rule

      that keeps me here which gives the brain

no say. Water in water out. Give me say, let me

thrive again. O Jesu. O Jesu thou. Give.