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Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song. Love that is too hot and strong Burneth soon to waste: Still, I would not have thee cold, Not too backward, nor too bold; Love that lasteth till ’tis old Fadeth not in haste. Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song. If thou lovest me too much It will not prove as true as touch; Love me little, more than such, For I fear the end: I am with little well content, And a little from thee sent Is enough, with true intent To be steadfast friend. Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song. Say thou lov’st me while thou live; I to thee my love will give, never dreaming to deceive Whiles that life endures: Nay, and after death, in sooth, I too thee will keep my truth, As now, when in my May of youth: This my love assures. Love me little, love me long, Is the burden on my song. Constant love is moderate ever, And it will through life persèver: Give me that, with true endeavour I will it restore. A suit of durance let it be For all weathers that for me, For the land or for the sea, Lasting evermore. Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song. Winter’s cold, or summer’s heat, Autumn’s tempests, on it beat, It can never know defeat, Never can rebel: Such the love that I would gain, Such the love, I tell thee plain, Thou must give, or woo in vain: So to thee, farewell Love me little, love me long, Is the burden of my song.

Oh, we fear our enemy’s mind, the shape in his thought that resembles the cripple in our own, for it’s not just his fear we fear, but his love and his paradise. We fear he will deprive us of our peace of mind, and, fearing this, are thus deprived, so we must go to war, to be free of this terror, this unremitting fear, that he might he might, he might. Oh it’s hard to say what he might do or feel or think. Except all that we cannot bear of feeling or thinking—so his might must be met with might of armor and of intent—informed by all the hunker down within the bunker of ourselves. How does he love? and eat? and drink? He must be all strategy or some sick lie. How can reason unlock such a door, for we bar it too with friends and lovers, in waking hours, on ordinary days? Finding the other so senseless and unknown, we go to war to feel free of the fear of our own minds, and so come to ruin in our hearts of ordinary days.

An orange did love The man who ate it. A feast for the eyes Is a fine repast; Its heart held fast His greedy gaze. A citron did scold: I am wiser than thou. A cedar condoled: Indeed thou shalt die! And who can revive A withered bough? The citron did urge: O fool, be wise. The cedar did rage: Slander and sin! Repent of thy ways For a fool I despise. An orange did love With life and limb The man who ate it, The man who flayed it. An orange did love The man who ate it, To its flayer it brought Flesh for the teeth. An orange, consumed By the man who ate it, Invaded his skin To the flesh beneath.

after García Lorca Once I wasn’t always so plain. I was strewn feathers on a cross of dune, an expanse of ocean at my feet, garlands of gulls. Sirens and gulls. They couldn’t tame you. You know as well as they: to be a dove is to bear the falcon at your breast, your nights, your seas. My fear is simple, heart-faced above a flare of etchings, a lineage in letters, my sudden stare. It’s you. It’s you! sang the heart upon its mantel pelvis. Blush of my breath, catch of my see—beautiful bird—It’s you.

If by truth you mean hand then yes I hold to be self-evident and hold you in the highest— KO to my OT and bait to my switch, I crown you one-trick pony to my one-horse town, dub you my one-stop shopping, my space heater, juke joint, tourist trap, my peep show, my meter reader, you best batteries-not-included baring all or nothing. Let me begin by saying if he hollers, end with goes the weasel. In between, cream filling.Get over it, meaning,the moon. Tell me you’ll dismember this night forever, you my punch-drunking bag, tar to my feather. More than the sum of our private parts, we are some peekaboo, some peak and valley, some bright equation (if and then but, if er then uh). My fruit bat, my gewgaw. You had me at noduh.

Just let the San Andreas stay put, keeping this tunnel intact, enough to amble out of it, past Louie’s Dim Sum a Saturday afternoon, a breeze detectable off the bay—visible in the distance, carrying with it the smells of open air markets: crab freshly caught and seahorses piled in bins along Stockton . . . or Jack, strolling out of the tube connecting Polk Gulch and North Beach, on his way to Aquatic Park to spread the Sporting Green on his favorite patch of grass . . . He is ferrying the portable radio to his ear, listening for the count in the bottom of the ninth at Candlestick, begins to smooth the pages with the palms before he sits to keep it dry: the split seat of his pants for Jack Spicer (1925-1965)

The sail is so vast when it's laid out on the driveway. I stake it with a screwdriver through the shackle at the tack to stretch it smooth, pulling on the head and clew. Now it's smooth as a night's worth of new snow. My wife, my partner, has been torn from her busy day. We face each other across the sail's foot and with my right hand and her left hand (I'm right handed, she's left handed) we pull an arm's length of the sail down over itself, then do this again, keeping my left hand, and her right hand, towards the foot. Each fold is easier since the sail grows narrower near the top. Then we fold towards each other and I wrap my arms around it, while she holds the bag's mouth open, the gray bag that will cover it through the winter. Then I thank her. And the driveway is visible again as it is in spring, when all the snow has melted.

The afternoon we left our first apartment, we scrubbed it down from ceiling to parquet. Who knew the place could smell like lemon muffins? It suddenly seemed nuts to move away. The morning someone bought our station wagon, it gleamed with wax and every piston purred. That car looked like a centerfold in Hot Rod! Too late, we saw that selling was absurd. And then there was the freshly tuned piano we passed along to neighbors with a wince. We told ourselves we’d find one even better; instead we’ve missed its timbre ever since. So if, God help us, we are ever tempted to ditch our marriage when it’s lost its glow, let’s give the thing our finest spit and polish— and, having learned our lesson, not let go.

The twilight of your face, the unknown bird in your voice, draws me again to your eyes’ green vision, your song about that longest moment, a moon vulnerability, a Natalie I saw alone, at Carolyn’s party years ago, where you called me to your side, and I held my heart, cupped in shadow, as an offering to your smile, our soft-spoken isolation.

The rain whistled. A taxi brought me to your apartment building And there I stood. I had dreamed a dream Of us in a bedroom. The light shining upon us in white sheets. You were singing me a song of your sailing days And in the dream I reached deep in you and pulled out a cardinal Which in bright red Flew out the window. Sometimes when we talk On the phone, I think to myself That the deep perfect of your soul Is what draws me to you. But still what soul is perfect? All souls are misshapen and off-colored. Morning comes within a soul And makes it obey another law In which all souls are snowflakes. Once at a funeral, a man had died And with the prayers said, his soul flew up in a hurry Like it had been let out of something awful. It was strangely colored, that soul. And it was a funny shape and a funny temperature. As it blew away, all of us looking felt the cold.