We were advertising our urge for life
To ourselves and anyone else who might
Have noticed

The smothering heat of a July night
Squats in a second floor bedroom
And doesn’t move despite the desk fan’s

Smashing sticks of gum till her jaw smarts,
Looking for something out there to look at,

Any tourist will tell you:
Envisioning is our medicine.
I, too, hope to see what I can’t see.

The log-crammed trucks smash the yielding air,
Whine like leviathan gnats.

Because we use the same words
Does not mean we have the same eyes.

Warm abstraction, glimmer and fruit
Of progress, hope and comfortable psychology
We forgive the promises of love, drugs and dieting

The train swayed past cropped fields,
Barking collies, abandoned gas works, cows.
Brown bungalows with little gardens

She didn't like him: long nose baits,
Voice patient yet overbearing (a voice
Meant for a world of women-as-children).
He'd expect a yielding kiss if not more.

To start with, it looked abstract
                                                 that first year from the balcony