late morning but
the college dining hall allows little sign
only the high white light
above the brown panels
fixes space with its level gaze
weighs down the prisoner room
with white undifferentiated light

human heads however
saintly
against the epiphanic light
reveal their still essential beauty

& the only she
sorrowing against the light
in the brown mourning
is the prism
that shatters the room
into spectral significance

[1974]