POEM OF THE WEEK

TWELFTH MORNING OR WHAT YOU WILL

ELIZABETH BISHOP

Like a first coat of whitewash when it's wet,

the thin gray mist lets everything show through:

the black boy Balthazar, a fence, a horse,

     a foundered house,

—cement and rafters sticking from a dune.

(The Company passes off these white but shopworn

dunes as lawns.) "Shipwreck," we say; perhaps

        this is a housewreck.

The sea's off somewhere, doing nothing. Listen.

An expelled breath. And faint, faint, faint

(or are you hearing things), the sandpipers'

        heart-broken cries.

The fence, three-strand, barbed-wire, all pure rust,

three dotted lines, comes forward hopefully

across the lots; thinks better of it; turns

        a sort of corner . . .

Don't ask the big white horse, Are you supposed

to be inside the fence or out? He's still

asleep. Even awake, he probably

        remains in doubt.

He's bigger than the house. The force of

personality, or is perspective dozing?

A pewter-colored horse, an ancient mixture,

         tin, lead, and silver,

he gleams a bit. But the four-gallon can

approaching on the head of Balthazár

keeps flashing that the world's a pearl, and I,

       I am

its highlight! You can hear the water now,

inside, slap-slapping. Balthazar is singing.

"Today's my Anniversary," he sings,

      "the Day of Kings."

                                               Cabo Frio