Paula
NOTHING else in this song-only your face. Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes. The pier runs into the lake straight as a rifle barrel. I stand on the pier and sing how I know you mornings. It is not your eyes, your face, I remember. It is not your dancing, race-horse feet. It is something else I remember you for on the pier mornings. Your hands are sweeter than nut-brown bread when you touch me. Your shoulder brushes my arm-a south-west wind crosses the pier. I forget your hands and your shoulder and I say again: Nothing else in this song-only your face. Nothing else here-only your drinking, night-gray eyes.
Paula - meaning Summary
Intimate, Focused Remembrance
The poem is a compact, intimate address to Paula in which the speaker narrows experience to a single presence. Set on a pier at morning, the speaker repeats an insistence that the song holds only her face and night-gray eyes while also recalling tactile moments—hands, shoulder, a wind—yet downplaying them to reassert the visual focus. It captures concentrated memory and desire that privileges one beloved image over fuller detail.
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