Days Like a Diary.

Christie, A.V.

Days Like a Diary

   You painted your way out of the room--
   it was that fragile, a diary of the fragile

      fragility of sleet and quick and ticking
      of dust's streaming
      cosmos in lamplight

   In the morning we took our medicine,
   scattered out the affect gate

      fragility of noon
      eclipse
      and the shadows to be thrown down

   You'd capture an hour
   with an adjective

      fragility of Respighi's nightingale
      the one live symphony-bird
      called for in the notebook

   Its song brought
   to bear, brought forth

      fragility of bathwater
      easing down around you--
      slight rapturous indent

      at the surface way above
      the drain's undrawing

   Each moment was that crystalline, part stain,
   part stippling--back
   of an orchid's throat.