I
THIS NIGHT ONLY
Moonlight now on Malibu
The winter night the few stars
Far away millions of miles
The sea going on and on
Forever around the earth
Far and far as your lips are near
Filled with the same light as your eyes
Darling darling darling
The future is long gone by
And the past will never happen
We have only this
Our one forever
So small so infinite
So brief so vast
Immortal as our hands that touch
Deathless as the firelit wine we drink
Almighty as this single kiss
That has no beginning
That will never
Never
End
II
AT LEAST THAT ABANDON
As I watch at the long window,
Crowds of travellers hurry
Behind me, rainy darkness
Blows before me, and the great plane
Circles, taxis to the runway,
Waits, and then roars off into
The thick night. I follow it
As it rises through the clouds
And levels off under the stars.
Stars, darkness, a row of lights,
Moaning engines, thrumming wings,
A silver plane over a sea
Of starlit clouds and rain bound
Sea. What I am following
Is a rosy, glowing coal
Shaped like the body of a
Woman-rushing southward a
Meteor afire with the
Same fire that burns me unseen
Here on the whirling earth amongst
Bright, busy, incurious
Faces of hundreds of people
Who pass me, unaware of
The blazing astrophysics
Of the end of a weekend.
III
AN BASY SONG
It’s rained every day since you
Went away. I’ve been lonely.
Lonely, empty, tenderness-
Longing to kiss the corners
Of your mouth as you smile
Your special, inward, sensual,
And ironic smile I love
Because I know it means you
Are content-content in French-
A special, inward, sensual,
And ironic state of bliss.
Tu es contente, ma cherie?
I am, even if lonely,
Because I can call to mind
Your body in a warm room,
In the rainy winter night,
A rose on the hearth of winter,
A rose cloud standing naked,
In the perfume of your flesh.
Moi aussi, je suis content.
IV
COMING
You are driving to the airport
Along the glittering highway
Through the warm night,
Humming to yourself.
The yellow rosebuds that stood
On the commode faded and fell
Two days ago. Last night the
Petals dropped from the tulips
On the dresser. The signs of
Your presence are leaving the
House one by one. Being without
You was almost more than I
Could bear. Now the work is squared
Away. All the arrangements
Have been made. All the delays
Are past and I am thirty
Thousand feet in the air over
A dark lustrous sea, under
A low half moon that makes the wings
Gleam like fish under water-
Rushing south four hundred miles
Down the California coast
To your curving lips and your
Ivory thighs.
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