. exactly the forehead, exactly the lips, exactly the hands with the same dirty stain at the fingernail with little plaits in a georgette dress with a dahlia at the cheek, a strawberry to the mouth in that blue-grey band in the hair (and: would ashes bloom?)   What—exactly—is happening in the first line of this poem? Why does the line insist on exactness and yet breaks off, three times, unable to formulate the whole thought? Does the speaker study her own forehead, lips and hands, or does she look intensely at someone else? Does “exactly” emphasise the patience of her visual and tactile exploration? Or does this qualifier confirm some similarity, traced carefully in a mirror, a photograph, life? Is the speaker’s insistence…