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Prayers for One Person
I
Peace, infinity of the mind,
Be to her what Paris is to armies when they reach the Seine:
The hills before they get to them,
The towers, sunlit verticals behind diagonals of rain,
The thirst for cognac, for the squares-
Place de la Bastille, or the Concord's obelisk-
Sudden like sidewalks be the end of risk.
u
Her war outlasts the Armistice.
She is the flier who is pilot still. Again, now flying blind,
Busily takes reconnaissance.
Be, then, evolved: her breathing on the finder of her mind,
A momentary image
Like a landing field between the shore and sea,
Miasmic substance though it be.
m
Exist next summer when she rides
A fender with the motor sweet after the motor's stalling,
Fickle yet fixed, her pulse's beat
At body's speed-the "certain constant acceleration falling"-
When headlights catch the ruts ahead,
When, at her back, the midge-flecked windshield hides the wrist
That turns the wheel toward chaos-Peace: exist.