Your mind is a little, clandestine pastel Shaped into a posture of rigid grief. Its colors huddle together And make a stunted, aching lyric.... Ah frail-flowered moment preceding reality-- Your eyelids open; the little pastel dies.
In these six lines, the speaker addresses Minna and pictures her mind as a small, secret pastel—a delicate colored sketch fixed in a “posture of rigid grief.” The colors do not spread freely; they “huddle together,” producing a “stunted, aching lyric,” as if her inner life is muted and wounded but…
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