Irretrievably girl in other words
      ashamed pear-shaped earnest canary
has just about licked up her past

You are not Aldebaran, glaring and bloodshot
eye of the bull, head lowered, about to gore me.
You are not Antares, the falsely young, speaking

In his prison letters, Bonhoeffer is thankful
for a hairbrush, for a pipe and tobacco,
for cigarettes and Schelling's Morals Vol. II.

Nothing about the food, the wine, the subjects
Of that night’s passions. Nothing even about
The weather—rain most likely, the damp seeping

I memorized
my whole life in order
to release it

I took the water she gave me, a dark young woman
in a “Spanish,” off the shoulder, ruffled blouse—
a cover girl, almost (like the maiden on the Sun-
Maid raisin box), remembering to smile for tourist

Telling our story is . . . painful as anything
I’ve ever done. More painful than. A lapse
Of time so long and I’d assumed, wrongly,

Because dusk comes in not long
after 5 o’clock in Chelsea
and lamps come to life, a gold

Entering a cave, or stepping outside at night,
artificial blindness, temporary
but absolute. And if I lost sight,

An emptied wineglass
White windows reflect in
Billowing like sails.