Boy Dressing

There lies the shoe, picked up a minute past
And dropped when something struck him, and he paused,
Eye-rigid, fixing daylight on the door:
Thin daylight, that a careless clock has caused

And windows have conspired with. So his hands,
Conscious of nothing leather, float to work
At buttons on his breast, and at the tie—
He fumbles round it; finishes with a jerk;

Stops dead again, his hair in timeless tangles,
Obedient to a moment that will end—
Bang! Doors downstairs have doomed it. But the shoe
Remembering, his back begins to bend,

His knee comes up, his fingers at the instep
Play with the knotted laces. Leave him there.
Be tolerant of trances. For he feeds
On time, and drinks the milk of mother air.