Vespers
An early June haze and jays
call from its edges, and finches.
I turn to their singing wanting.
What is suffering anyway.
Tsvetayeva says the soul is
our capacity for pain. I have
no soul then, no capacity.
Or else I’m all soul. There is
no end to gravity, all weight
is drawn to a body’s center.
I come out here to make peace.
Through wind the world touches me:
cheek, nape, brow. Listen. Tell me
we are not the soul turned outward.