I fall back into what I was. Days go by when I do nothing but underline the damp edge of myself.What I want is what I've always wanted. What I want is to be changed.

I spent a long time fallingtoward your slender, tremulous face—a long time slipping through starsas they shattered, through sticky cloudswith no confetti in them.

What separates self from the flutterof longing?

The Puritans thought that we are granted the ability to loveonly through miracle,but the troubadours knew how to burn themselves through,how to make themselves shrines to their own longing.The spectacular was never behind them.

I carried you a long way into my mirror, believing you would carry me back out.

as if I am an instrument he is tuning,or as if (adjusting his mask) he is adjusting an instrumentto look through me—

I only dream of your ankles brushed by dark violets,of honeybees above youmurmuring into a crown. Antique queen,the night dreams on:

No one remembers.But I remember, under the elm's cool awning,watching you watch the clouds.

. . . where we lounged through summer days, waiting for something to happen