Why not---!

          The black energy of that time.
We shared

There seems to be, about certain lives,
A vague, violent frame, an imperceptible
Halo of uncertainty, diffidence and taste

Down the long curving walk you trudge to the street,
Stoop-shouldered in defeat, a cardboard suitcase
In each hand. Gerda, don’t leave! the child cries

Then to go there in the dusky
heavy air of that place yet always
carrying in the shielding

Like the bells
That could be ringing out of heaven now
For all my ears can tell,

Dear heart, wish you or I were here or there . . .
No. That’s not true.
I wish I knew that you

Now the universe wants to be known for
Itself, isn’t that why we’re here
Popped out on this terrace the color of stars

He raised his hand above his head.
His hair was a surface of gray,
his hand a semaphore.

You could see windstorms and a piece of floating string
making their way to the school
for hours—you could watch the sun,

As long as I struggle to float above the ground
and fail, there is reason for this poetry.
On the stone back of the Ludovici throne, Venus