The Green World

He has arranged the room. No longer Robinson
Crusoe, shorebound with his array of chests and
flotsam, he is surrounded by order. Books rest

in assigned places on shelves, drawings have found
their moment of equilibrium in the eye, and a pleasant
soft drink bottle has found duty as a vase, its theme

for the day a stalk of pink hollyhocks, with random
greenery against a bare white wall. His things are
arranged beneath the bed's joists, and the bed

is carefully made. She arrives, and her expression
approves. They begin the cautious duet: How was
your day? Oh, very hard. The work is impossible.

Et pour toi? The assistants have begun to learn
their routines. It's not so bad as it was. Good, bon.
He removes his shoes, she removes hers. They lie

on the bed (where else? The room is so very small,
a monk's cell really, and he has one chair) and fall
quiet, each gazing into the other's face as if

at first meeting, as if at farewell, as if a journey
had ended, as if now must somehow become all time,
as if this moment the universe might collapse, as if

the god were to say, now I will make a new adam,
one who will never misuse her heart, and now
I will make a new eve, and when each touches

the other, I will make their world green forever....