Deep underground, at Strasbourg-St. Denis,

The crowd awaiting peacocks dims,

But real walls do shine.

From the tiles your almond eyes,

Heavy like a house,

Pick me from the jocose dust,

So sweeping by, the sweeper grins,

Pointing to his pile of wings,

And winks his understanding –

Meanwhile, the bathers in the stream,

Promiscuous as people in the light,

Dance down the catacombs,

Jigging on the gleaming rails,

Hand in hand,

HÉ! EVOÉ! ATTENTION AU PAN!

In these dreams

I almost touch the people with their hands

As if our differences were undiscovered.

Their thoughts run underground

Like the intermittent window-frames,

Aromatic with infant sparks,

Where even the foul clochard must work,

Ferrying the mob from quay to quay,

All equal in his sizzling spit. –

In a tunnel I awake each night

Frictious, my hair in sparks,

And I’m afraid you won’t be close at hand,

Wrapped in the cool and sleeping shadows,

Your breath as calm and quiet

As the sleeping trains,

Your hair across your mouth,

Your own limbs in the wind,

To the calyx of your breath.

I dreamed you dreamed this in your life:

The moon in a cool pond,

Amused fishes hushed beneath.