Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.

The songs have changed, but really they are still quite beautiful.They have been concentrated in a smaller space, the space of the mind.They are dark, now, with desolation and anguish.And yet the notes recur. They hover oddlyin anticipation of silence.The ear gets used to them.The eye gets used to disappearances.You will not be spared, nor will what you love be spared.

This silence is my companion now. I ask: of what did my soul die? and the silence answersif your soul died, whose lifeare you living and when did you become that person?

My memory is like a basement filled with old papers: nothing ever changes.

Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the nightthe beloved body, compass, polestar,to hear the quiet breathing that saysI am alive, that means alsoyou are alive, because you hear me,you are here with me.

The assignment was to fall in love.The details were up to you.The second part wasto include in the poem certain words,words drawn from a specific texton another subject altogether.

I sleep so you will be alive, it is that simple.

You're in the garden, you're where John is, in the dirt, abstracted, holding his green trowel.This is how he gardens: fifteen minutes of intense effort, fifteen minutes of ecstatic contemplation.

Suddenly, after you die, those friends who never agreed about anything agree about your character.