5: Honor Vincent

For Eurydice
 
When you slipped back, that day,
from grasping light, that clings        or tries
 
Did you roll from the body
                          (a constant falling away)    
 
Or did the eye
statue you;
Your hell an unending corpus.
 
                            And they, still
                           Spin syllables out of silence,
                                                     the very abyss of the ‘ah’
 
Though blue on blue
orchid on orchid
You cannot give
             without the double that removes.
 
And our eyes, we hold, immortal
to catch the bloom
 
The slipping wisp of woman;
 
(while she
lies
below             
in negated stone).