We smile at each other
and I lean back against the wicker couch.
How does it feel to be dead? I say.
You touch my knees with your blue fingers.
And when you open your mouth,
a ball of yellow light falls to the floor
and burns a hole through it.
Don't tell me, I say. I don't want to hear.
Did you ever, you start,
wear a certain kind of dress
and just by accident,
so inconsequential you barely notice it,
your fingers graze that dress
and you hear the sound of a knife cutting paper,
you see it too
and you realize how that image
is simply the extension of another image,
that your own life
is a chain of words
that one day will snap.
Words, you say, young girls in a circle, holding hands,
and beginning to rise heavenward
in their confirmation dresses,
like white helium balloons,
the wreathes of flowers on their heads spinning,
and above all that,
that's where I'm floating,
and that's what it's like
only ten times clearer,
ten times more horrible.
Could anyone alive survive it?

To W. R. B.

And so, to you, who always were
Perseus, D'Artagnan, Lancelot
To me, I give these weedy rhymes
In memory of earlier times.
Now all those careless days are not.
Of all my heroes, you endure.

Words are such silly things! too rough,
Too smooth, they boil up or congeal,
And neither of us likes emotion --
But I can't measure my devotion!
And you know how I really feel --
And we're together. There, enough . . .

i.
We would sleep, but never touching,
your sheets were always cold,
your room dark, like a thick blanket

You told me tonight that all you
wanted to do was hold me in your arms,
I didn't know if this was the truth
or the ***** speaking your sentiments
for you

ii.
You have been out with women,
women who I'm sure were beautiful,
who were possibly more expressive,
more full of life,
able to offer you what I couldn't
but still, you said
that you were left with
comparisons
and that every time

I won.

What is the hardest part
                    Of being alone?
It's the quietness,
A stillness making
What ought have been a home-
a house.
It's filled with beds,
But those lover's nests
Are             Empty.
And the thought is
As occupying as a dream.
A dream you cannot feel
Because the loneliness is keeping you awake

With no one to hold down your fears
         And keep you safe.