The border. Everything I loved was lost But no aorta could report regret. A sun of rubber was convulsed and set; And blood-black nothingness began to spin A system of cells interlinked within Cells interlinked within cells interlinked Within one stem. And dreadfully distinct Against the dark, a tall white fountain played. I realized, of course, that it was made Not of our atoms; that the sense behind The scene was not our sense. In life, the mind Of any man is quick to recognize Natural shams, and then before his eyes The reed becomes a bird, the knobby twig An inchworm, and the cobra head, a big Wickedly folded moth. But in the case Of my white fountain what it did replace Perceptually was something that, I felt, Could be grasped only by whoever dwelt In the strange world where I was a mere stray.