Now the Fly’s in the Saucer

after Virginia Woolf, “The New Dress”

Breathe, breathe, you tell yourself. This paltry fear
Will pass, must pass, your frozen lungs fill up
With clean air, blessed air, the weak tea clear,
Its faint aroma rising from your cup,
The dawn rising as dimly as far sounds
Of songbirds in someone’s yard, the lawn man
Sprinkling crushed aspen leaves and coffee grounds
Among the pale nasturtiums. Love began
Somewhere about this natural setting, here,
And dreaming of it lets you catch your breath,
Now, as your lover casts a sullen leer.
Say, as others do, “There’s Shakespeare! There’s death!
We’re all weevils in a captain’s biscuit.”
No, no, too miserable, too much to risk it.