All things are under the wings of doubt—
cattle and the fruits of the earth,
men and women,
the menstrual flux, the flow of milk
and infirmity.
Between her legs,
with her hands, she summons her health
as if it were flowing from the knife,
alone without
the foundation of loss.
Some men came to a stream.
One of them took off his clothes
and went into the stream
and tasted it and declared that it was true.
Without words, action is secret.
Out of the water,
the man’s hand suddenly burned.
Under the threshold of the door,
the bones of a name said
I have my own hands, and a little hole,
unknown to touch or look.
I have seen the fields, the air,
and been within the year to prove this.