The book is a critic. "Like you",
he said, " better left un-opened".
You can use a knife to peel
an orange, though easier done
with your teeth; a scraping tool
is death, the irony of discovery.
Living, then, is a hazelnut,
smooth-skinned, unpenetrated,
natural as a grove choked by
brush, where mouse-birds nest
like glass-bulbs of a chandelier
powdered in fine, brown dust.
The only freedom is light
outside its room, lost-
no layers or skein, just
wide, thoughtless shining.
