Love, here we stand at the beginning
of our life together, and I find myself
thinking of a hot summer night

to say, “We are home, but, no, we are not here now.
    Please don’t leave us a message.”

the world is not an example of anything. My
mother's voice calls us to dinner, and we both
stand, my brother and I, faithful now

The trick to posing newlyweds… but everyone
knows how you must incline them
to lean imperceptibly toward the warm flesh

A plant grew quietly on the windowsill, and everybody
knew it was a good soldier and they nodded hello

Smoking a dart, I said.
I just met my first bird.

I know you, smaller than Circumference
Of Bone—smaller than Orbit—than Silver

Flask in Pocket—more delicate than Mints

Later, we will notice a vast communication
between separate selves. We will learn
in the colors of our lover's body

A world already named, already deposed
in the urge of his stressed
consonants, vowels slack:

They gave me a choice I didn't want: the fate
of a twenty-three-year-old man named
   Frank Spencer Robertson,