Found in Willow Springs 79
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is one of the easiest kinds
of pleasure. Take this stack
of colored blocks built
by one child, rectangular green
on a red square with a yellow
triangle on top: crash,
the younger child comes
like a storm into a picnic,
like a story. Now someone
wants something to put
in the mouth: a small fruit,
perhaps, like a plum or just
the branches of a plum,
gathered into some girl's
arms. Now something
cannot be had. Oh, dear, and
some whole trees, and some more
trees, and water, oh, a baby,
or a lost job. A hangnail, a day
moon. A bowl of oranges,
molding. And the most acute
pleasure of some girl losing
her flowers in the stream,
she throws in those white stars
one by one, even the stems,
even the leafage,
the unopened ones, too,
she can hardly wait to forget them,
to begin the whole thing over.
