When I was a child 
I brushed as a child
which is to say often 

To look at beauty and never make it yours.
If it weren’t this way you’d look at yourself
that is you’d have nothing more to look at,

Isn’t it amazing that one evening
sliding the bread into its paper sack
I start all over with the same old speech,

Loaf of bread or sheep's
head, rubber nubbed
for traction on flatnesses