You-the purest pleasure of my life, the split pit that proves the ripeness of the fruit,

Exploring each other’s depths, that surge of connection which makes the world seem sane,

When the devil brings him, like a Christmas puppy, examine his downy fur & smell his small paws for the scent of sulphur.

The old poet with his face full of lines, with iambs jumping in his hair lik… with all the revisions of his body unsaying him,

Rising in the morning like warm bread, from a bed in America, the aroma

At dusk Demeter becomes afraid for baby Persephone lost in that hell which she herself created

I hear you will not fall in love w… because I come without a guarantee… because someday I may depart at wh… and leave you desolate, abandoned,… If that’s the case, what use to be…

You call me courageous, I who grew up gnawing on books, as some kids

Little egg, little nub, full complement of fingers, toes, little rose blooming

The great bed of the world arching over graves over Babi Yar with its multitude of bones, with battalions of screams

You open to me a little, then grow afraid and close again, a small boy

My broom with its tufts of roses beckoning at the black, with its crown of thistles, prickling the sky,

I put our books face to face so they could talk. They whispered about us. I put yours on top of mine. They would not mate.

I sit at my desk alone as I did on many Sunday afternoons when you came back to me, your arms aching for me,

There is a white wood house near… in whose garden the nightingale st… Though Keats is dead, the bird wh… returns with melodies, on easeful… A lock of hair the poet’s love rec…