I call this latest book Adversity.
Though it is mine, it is obscure to me.
Some passages of love, though, seem more clear
In a dark context, and I gloss them here.
*
It was not quite the last time. Yet, that day,
Orgasm shook my body with a cry
That echoed through me like a long goodbye.
We parted; then you wept, and turned away.
*
We first met maybe seven years ago
But barely more than chatted before this.
Three afternoons of love, and you must go.
I miss you, scarcely knowing whom I miss.
*
Those brieze-block walls: bare in my memory
The room is – basin, bed, one lamp, one chair.
Yet, entering it, I found you also bare,
And lay down in the lap of luxury.
*
Strange that of all things I recall this fact:
Neither the surge of passion nor the act,
But falling asleep like a child no terrors shake,
Who can, because the woman stays awake.
*
Despising though desiring you, I let
Our next date pass, deciding to forget.
I’d known you, say, five hours in fewer days;
Twenty years later, how you touched me stays.
*
I see a broken city in your head
(Beautiful lady) ravaged by cross-fire.
But here, against that backdrop, you are led
By civil urgencies of sweet desire.
*
You speak of hope and liberty, new love.
Why must I speak of loyalty and despair?
Freedom is our two bodies as they move
And hopelessness the passion we must share.
*
I thought myself unscathed, so did not yield,
But ran, till looking back from a safe height,
I saw wrenched bodies on a battlefield
That once had seemed a garden of delight.
*
Dear child, dear lady, bless you where you sleep
Alone, who should be sleeping here with me.
My one desire’s that your desire should keep
On beating at the gates of reverie.