Within her purple goblet,

Maria swims.

Outside the world condenses.

She doesn't miss anything anymore.

Events turn on the crystal curve

Or escape altogether her senses.

Things are too much without us,

I said, just over the sill of sense.

She went.

My words went after her.

Darkly. In waves. Like a plague of insects.

Half the next afternoon

I watched a poisoned ant

Reel along a table-edge.

Dreadful to see time passing in the distance.

Worse: to see nothing, Hear its whistle. Only.

A tear slid

Between her eye

And sight.

I thought all along

She was one of those women who pass through a cloud

Through your life a bird through space.

Memory, my old egg,

Broke upon my head,

Dripped into my eyes.

My mind's reach groped for her

A hand in the dark

For a key before a door.

Unable not to stand her any longer

I came with the murderous vengeance of. a child

And a madman's innocence.

When I race my wet finger

Around her goblet-lip,

She -- or the glass itself -- sings like a violin.