Part 32 (2/2)

Heal the least schism

Under the soonest sun. Take her

Hand, tell her it doesn't matter,

Milk's not to cry over. Scatter

Seed from a silver gun. Break her

Bones in a mortar, shatter

Wine bottles at her feet, let green gla.s.s

Sparkle upon her hand. Let it be done.

Let the milk run.

Let it flow down, down to the ancient gra.s.s.

I asked if I could copy it into my notebook. Her laugh was light, merry. 'Why? Does it tell who killed her?'

'I don't know what it tells me. Maybe if I keep it I'll figure out what it tells me.'

'If you figure out what it means,' she said, 'I hope you'll tell me. That's an exaggeration. I sort of know what I'm getting at. But don't bother copying it. You can have that copy.'

'Don't be silly. That's your copy.'

She shook her head. 'It's not finished. It needs more work. I want to get her eyes into it. If you met Kim you must have noticed her eyes.'

'Yes.'

'I originally wanted to contrast the blue eyes with the green gla.s.s, that's how that image got there in the first place, but the eyes disappeared when I wrote it. I think they were in an earlier draft but somewhere along the line they dropped out.' She smiled. 'They were gone in a wink. I've got the silver and the green and the white and I left the eyes out.' She stood with her hand on my shoulder, looking down at the poem. 'It's what, twelve lines? I think it should be fourteen anyway. Sonnet length, even if the lines are irregular. I don't know about schism, either. Maybe an off-rhyme would be better. Spasm, chasm, something.'

She went on, talking more to herself than to me, discussing possible revisions in the poem. 'By all means keep that,' she concluded. 'It's a long way from final form. It's funny. I haven't even looked at it since she was killed.'

'You wrote it before she was killed?'

'Completely. And I don't think I ever thought of it as finished, even though I copied it in pen and ink. I'll do that with drafts. I can get a better idea of what does and doesn't work that way. I'd have kept on working on this one if she hadn't been killed.'

'What stopped you? The shock?'

'Was I shocked? I suppose I must have been. 'This could happen to me,' Except of course I don't believe that. It's like lung cancer, it happens to other people. 'Any man's death diminishes me.' Did Kim's death diminish me? I don't think so. I don't think I'm as involved in mankind as John Donne was. Or as he said he was.'

'Then why did you put the poem aside?'

'I didn't put it aside. I left it aside. That's nitpicking, isn't it?' She considered this. 'Her death changed how I saw her. I wanted to work on the poem, but I didn't want to get her death into it. I had enough colors. I didn't need blood in there, too.'

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