Tell me, love, what were you thinking of ?
I was thinking how there are certain times of the night
when the dead wipe the frost from their souls and weep.
Of nothing simpler?
Of a courtyard I once visited, and of a woman
standing beside a statue covered in snow.
Of no one else? No one nearer?
She was so beautiful,
had she been made of nettles I’d have wanted her.
Why think of her now, at this moment?
Because I am still mixing the ashes of the dead and of dead obsessions.
Why answer me like this?
Because I am bankrupt of small comforts, of small deceits.
Because we two are new, and without history,
and treasonous memory sleeps in so many beds.