From a certain point, there is no more turning back.
That is the point that must be reached.

Franz Kafka

It moved. Like something a double agent might stifle.
The wind turned it inside out and blurred it,
nightfall made it louder.

In some way, you were father to it,
chasing it side-to-side like a vagrant fish
in your black coffee,

my mind its solitary jetty.
Last week the weather felt different, almost maternal.
I put a suitcase of seedlings

into your hands
but piece-by-piece, the leaves broke off
and your hands melted away

like a sun and a moon
that were candles.
Earlier, from twenty-five to thirty-two

I followed you in obeisance.
Took a plane from city to city and then
a train underground—

In the shadow-play of cafés, nightcaps,
the heat of summer rain, when lights
turn red, they smell of you.

It comes again, too often. The questions
mired in amber, the palms of electricity, the sharpness,
from a certain point of view, of supposedly

losing it all. No more silver
into the hard green mouth of the well.
No more wishes drawn

from a wish-soaked heaven.
Cold happiness. The company of thieves—the dark-
berried timber, your blue eyes looking

back as I sit on the staircase
and glimpse the pollen-nest we gambled
into the breeze.

Tonight I forge a promise:
When nobody is home, and the bills are
all paid, I will visit.