I cannot live with You--

It would be Life--

And Life is over there--

Behind the Shelf

The Sexton keeps the Key to--

Putting up

Our Life--His Porcelain--

Like a Cup--

Discarded of the Housewife--

Quaint--or Broke--

A newer Sevres pleases--

Old Ones crack--

I could not die--with You--

For One must wait

To shut the Other's Gaze down--

You--could not--

And I--could I stand by

And see You--freeze--

Without my Right of Frost--

Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise--with You--

Because Your Face

Would put out Jesus'--

That New Grace

Glow plain--and foreign

On my homesick Eye--

Except that You than He

Shone closer by--

They'd judge Us--How--

For You--served Heaven--You know,

Or sought to--

I could not--

Because You saturated Sight--

And I had no more Eyes

For sordid excellence

As Paradise

And were You lost, I would be--

Though My Name

Rang loudest

On the Heavenly fame--

And were You--saved--

And I--condemned to be

Where You were not--

That self--were Hell to Me--

So We must meet apart--

You there--I--here--

With just the Door ajar

That Oceans are--and Prayer--

And that White Sustenance--

Despair--

I heard a Fly buzz--when I died-- 

The Stillness in the Room

Was like the Stillness in the Air-- 

Between the Heaves of Storm--

The Eyes around--had wrung them dry-- 

And Breaths were gathering firm

For that last Onset--when the King

Be witnessed--in the Room-- 

I willed my Keepsakes--Signed away

What portions of me be

Assignable--and then it was

There interposed a Fly-- 

With Blue--uncertain stumbling Buzz-- 

Between the light--and me-- 

And then the Windows failed--and then

I could not see to see--