What will his crimes become, now that her hands

Have gone to sleep? He gathers deeds

In the pure air, the agent

Of their factual excesses. He laughs as she inhales.

If it could have ended before

It began—the sorrow, the snow

Dropping, dropping its fine regrets.

The myrtle dries about his lavish brow.

He stands quieter than the day, a breath

In which all evils are one.

He is the purest air. But her patience,

The imperative Become, trembles

Where hands have been before. In the foul air

Each snowflake seems a Piranesi

Dropping in the past; his words are heavy

With their final meaning. Milady! Mimosa! So the end

Was the same: the discharge of spittle

Into frozen air. Except that, in a new

Humorous landscape, without music,

Written by music, he knew he was a saint,

While she touched all goodness

As golden hair, knowing its goodness

Impossible, and waking and waking

As it grew in the eyes of the beloved.