1
Suddenly, long ago we gave up
the old playthings of bird carcasses,
the filching, playboy dolls—
(seducing every bit of plastic
that came waltzing into that neighborhood)—
for a bare space in the medieval forest
where your chivalry made my knees intellectual
conceits, my mouth leak for the rustle of leaves:
the bare-boned razor of your nails,
and my petulant, bruised lips;
I knew then neither of us were boys.
2
At least the city with a hundred years of aging
still whispers with its granite mouth
that we must all begin someplace.
3
The face changed. No longer
the fragile, blue-eyed wonder of the forest;
but the immense and crazy passion of a poet—
compared to the sea, all proverbials,
water me
water me down
into the weak tea of summer.
And I was carved out by you, made empty
What did we say?
There is so much language.
I will not speak to you for all your words.
4
I considered men. Women, too fragile
like Oliver's flowers and my back ached
from all the picking. Men were frivolities.
For when I found home, a small house,
a small garden; the scent of lilac in the morning—
we slept cautiously; eager as hungry sharks
for a month in my bed, not attempting more
for fear the thing would break.
And once more I was the earnest child
seeking sainthood in a forest full
of goblins and thieves.