1247 Love poems

I never thought I’d keep a record of my pain or happiness like candles lighting the entire soft lace of the air around the full length of your hair/a shower organized by God in brown and auburn undulations luminous like particles of flame But now I do retrieve an afternoon of apricots and water interspersed with cigarettes and sand and rocks we walked across: How easily you held my hand beside the low tide of the world Now I do relive an evening of retreat a bridge I left behind where all the solid heat of lust and tender trembling lay as cruel and as kind as passion spins its infinite tergiversations in between the bitter and the sweet Alone and longing for you now I do

How do we come to be here next to each other in the night Where are the stars that show us to our love inevitable Outside the leaves flame usual in darkness and the rain falls cool and blessed on the holy flesh the black men waiting on the corner for a womanly mirage I am amazed by peace It is this possibility of you asleep and breathing in the quiet air

Because you used to leaf through the dictionary, Casually, as someone might in a barber shop, and Devotedly, as someone might in a sanctuary, Each letter would still have your attention if not For the responsibilities life has tightly fit, like Gears around the cog of you, like so many petals Hinged on a daisy. That’s why I’ll just use your Initial. Do you know that in one treasured story, a Jewish ancestor, horseback in the woods at Yom Kippur, and stranded without a prayer book, Looked into the darkness and realized he had Merely to name the alphabet to ask forgiveness— No congregation of figures needed, he could speak One letter at a time because all of creation Proceeded from those. He fed his horse, and then Quietly, because it was from his heart, he Recited them slowly, from aleph to tav. Within those Sounds, all others were born, all manner of Trials, actions, emotions, everything needed to Understand who he was, had been, how flaws Venerate the human being, how aspirations return Without spite. Now for you, may your wife’s X-ray return with good news, may we raise our Zarfs to both your names in the Great Book of Life.

God love you Dana my lover lost in the horde on this Friday night, 500 men are moving up & down from the bath room to the bar. Remove this desire from the man I love. Who has opened the savagery of the sea to me. See to it that his wants are filled on California street Bestow on him lar- gesse that allows him peace in his loins. Leave him not to the moths. Make him out a lion so that all who see him hero worship his thick chest as I did moving my mouth over his back bringing our hearts to heights I never hike over anymore. Let blond hair burn on the back of his neck, let no ache screw his face up in pain, his soul is so hooked. Not heroin. Rather fix these hundred men as his lovers & lift him with the enormous bale of their desire. 6.20.58

My hair had hardly covered my forehead. I was picking flowers, playing by my door, When you, my lover, on a bamboo horse, Came trotting in circles and throwing green plums. We lived near together on a lane in Ch’ang-kan, Both of us young and happy-hearted. ...At fourteen I became your wife, So bashful that I dared not smile, And I lowered my head toward a dark corner And would not turn to your thousand calls; But at fifteen I straightened my brows and laughed, Learning that no dust could ever seal our love, That even unto death I would await you by my post And would never lose heart in the tower of silent watching. ...Then when I was sixteen, you left on a long journey Through the Gorges of Ch’u-t’ang, of rock and whirling water. And then came the Fifth-month, more than I could bear, And I tried to hear the monkeys in your lofty far-off sky. Your footprints by our door, where I had watched you go, Were hidden, every one of them, under green moss, Hidden under moss too deep to sweep away. And the first autumn wind added fallen leaves. And now, in the Eighth-month, yellowing butterflies Hover, two by two, in our west-garden grasses And, because of all this, my heart is breaking And I fear for my bright cheeks, lest they fade. ...Oh, at last, when you return through the three Pa districts, Send me a message home ahead! And I will come and meet you and will never mind the distance, All the way to Chang-feng Sha.

You have changed me already. I am a fireball That is hurtling towards the sky to where you are You can choose not to look up but I am a giant orange ball That is throwing sparks upon your face Oh look at them shake Upon you like a great planet that has been murdered by change O too this is so dramatic this shaking Of my great planet that is bigger than you thought it would be So you ran and hid Under a large tree. She was graceful, I think That tree although soon she will wither Into ten black snakes upon your throat And when she does I will be wandering as I always am A graceful lady that is part museum Of the voices of the universe everyone else forgets I will hold your voice in a little box And when you come upon me I won’t look back at you You will feel a hand upon your heart while I place your voice back Into the heart from where it came from And I will not cry also Although you will expect me to I was wiser too than you had expected For I knew all along you were mine

Your name is a—bird in my hand, a piece of ice on my tongue. The lips’ quick opening. Your name—four letters. A ball caught in flight, a silver bell in my mouth. A stone thrown into a silent lake is—the sound of your name. The light click of hooves at night —your name. Your name at my temple —sharp click of a cocked gun. Your name—impossible— kiss on my eyes, the chill of closed eyelids. Your name—a kiss of snow. Blue gulp of icy spring water. With your name—sleep deepens. April 15, 1916

Seeing in crowded restaurants the one you love You wave at the door, tall girl in imperious fur, And make for him, bumping waiters, dropping a glove, Arriving soft with affectionate slur. As ladies half-turn, gazing, and men appraise You heap the linen with purse, scarf, cigarettes, lighter, Laughing some instantaneous droll phrase. As if sudden sun came out, the table is brighter. All moods: at a party everybody’s delight; Intent while brown curls shadow the serious page; When people are stuffy (more correct than right) The stamp and turn on heel of a little girl’s rage. But woman mostly, as winter moonlight sees, Impetuous midnight, and the dune’s dark trees.

We’re talking about when we met and you say it was easier to fall for me thinking (I’ll remember this pause) it was likely I’d be dead by now. Talking. Falling. Thinking. Waiting . . . Have I undone what you’ve tried to do? You say no. You say the surprise of still being is something being built— the machine of our living, this saltwork of luck, stylish, safe, comfortable and unintended. Meanwhile, I haven’t had the opportunity to tell you, but our lovely little dog has just killed a possum. Maybe it’s unfair, a possum entering the argument here. But I lay it down before us: because an ugly dying  possum played dead and didn’t run, its dubious cunning was brought to an end outside our door by our brutal, beautiful and very pleased little dog. So how do I say that this is not about death or sadness or even whether you really first loved me waiting, thinking I’d be dying young? It’s just that standing there a few minutes ago holding a dead possum by its repellent bony tail, I was struck by how eerily pleased I was to be a spectator to teeth, spit, agony and claw, feeling full of purpose, thinking how different in our adversaries we are from possums. We try love— the fist of words, their opening hand. And whether we play dead or alive, our pain, the slow circulation of happiness, our salt and work, the stubborn questions we endlessly give names to haunt us with choice.

I Though I sing high, and chaunt above her, Praising my girl, It were not right To reckon her the poorer lover; She does not love me less For her royal, jewelled speechlessness, She is the sapphire, she the light, The music in the pearl. II Not from pert birds we learn the spring-tide From open sky. What speaks to us Closer than far distances that hide In woods, what is more dear Than a cherry-bough, bees feeding near In the soft, proffered blooms? Lo, I Am fed and honoured thus. III She has the star’s own pulse; its throbbing Is a quick light. She is a dove My soul draws to its breast; her sobbing Is for the warm dark there! In the heat of her wings I would not care My close-housed bird should take her flight To magnify our love.