Sequence

Like Christmas in Australia, or the idea of spring
In some future Texas, desertified and changeless,
May metaphor survive the world it comes from,
As a boy leaves home, a baby her bottle,

Losing the thing without abandonment
In feeling. May stars stay eternal
After falling, for example, and lovers
Recollect themselves, in their unhappiness,

By gazing at a memory of stars,
After stars per se have been obscured.
The pique of losing summer, the stir in the heart
When winter's fist has grown too weak to hold us---

May they still symbolize, when heat
Has no more seasons, and lead us into feeling
It's now the turn of stars to go missing
For a while, and then come back.