Ten heartbeats back our lips were touching. Ten?
Sixteen now, call it. Twenty-something. Truth
Can’t manage this, can’t get the hang of numbers.
Forty, and counting …
As the seas might drive,
Surge over surge, survivors from a raft
Their fingertips had touched once.
Stop that surge?
Stop, you can say to every clock but one
-Steeple-clock, travel-clock, cuckoo-clock—all but one:
The heart, with its red-jeweled steady movement, moves
This moment, this now, this all-our-life away,
Earth, with its birds and steeples, all away.
The wholer the heart, the haler, the more it takes.
Worse, our good moments, song, the glass swirled high,
Gaze sparking gaze, the very flesh sent soaring,
Joy at its most convulsive-even in dream
Sting, like a lash, the stumbling heart
stampeding
With more! yet more! its irreversible beat.
Leave a Reply