I’ve been walking for a mile
The woman stalking me has been sniffing for a while
She has become my second shadow
I hope I am not the source of her sorrow.

I quicken my steps on the quagmire of illusion
She hastens with her shadow on the plinths of delusion
One thing is sure: I’d out-walk her.
She makes her resolution as well not to remain in the rear.

Summer’s boiling breath is upon us, her and me
I thirst for solidarity with the sun and the sea
I wondered what she hungered for —bread or wine
The hays are all scorched on this tillage not far from the Rhine

I know her not from anywhere
Does she know me from any square —
Trafalgar or Madison or Time?
London and New York, in summer, raise hell and chime

I study the space between us
Not too wide as from navel to guts
The fields and their ogling lights begin to dim
I walk faster, I breathe harder, I skim

She follows up with the same verve
Through serpentine paths, I lost my nerve
But at the last corner of the woods,
Summer filtered out, summoning protocols of the hoods

I never saw her again, nor her shadow, so restless
Someone told me that was her last summer, so contentless
For me, that was indeed my first;
The first in which I skimmed over a hirst.

These, I understand, are end times
Both for festivals and serotinal matters in terms of dimes
But I mustn’t hasten through them,
Even though they cause me to run the phlegm.