Clear feet carried body erect through the stone city. Mother worlds in blood poured from her, leaving white feet, white body, while the soul of Fanny swooned in a ruthless knowledge.
FOUR
Pavement Over Earth
A MAN and a woman walked this day with Autumn burning all about them. The sun lay in thin cloud. The trees burst.
“I have found out, Fanny,” he said.
She was so shorter than he and her steps swifter than his long lurches. She felt him from his broad brown halfshoes upward ... big fleshly man, somehow lithe, somehow gentle like song above his crude-rhythming feet. And his hairy great hands she felt—as when they were on her body like a little child’s, so helpless yearning, so imperious.
“I knew I should find out if I gave myself the space to: that’s why I brought you up here. We came yesterday. This morning I know ... that I have known since the day you came into the Office asking for a job.”
She laughed.—I can laugh!
“O I see your thought: ‘That’s the conventional phrase.’”