The addition of solitude untrammeled,
one and more and more but always
the inner life astray,

3 days, 6 meals, 8 coffees have I driven
just to see the island.
I have turned off the radio 90 times

You have been evoked so often
like some relative in office
whom we have heard of by name

The Middle Ages had ended
even in the provinces,
but at first no one noticed

I suppose I ought to consider the question rhetorical,
or know it simply means, I'd like to know what you've seen.

As a matter of fact, I've been the spider crawling beneath
your sheets, the worm searching your warmth as you sleep,

Reconstitute a sense to make of absence
in the still heat of noon, south, summer
where spindled years unravel and unwind,

Mornings like this—no drift
         to the canoe, no bass
at the lure—the shiver-calls of loons

Some pets, Horace says, spend their lives
going over the same old ground: some suburb
      of love. A parking lot

Where in heaven have you been?
Wreathed waif, pale grace,
Scandalous would-be.

Seated towards the rear, facing backwards, smoking
in the cool day, he briskly turned his head

toward the stranger, who jumped onto the moving
streetcar, one hand holding her skirt up and