how
have I loved you—but a simple flame?
so
cured to ponder fire, so inclusive to
water
roses—our muddy auras or mother’s
agony,
too cursed to beg forgiveness. our
nightstands,
or rickety windowpanes, or
floors
so silent so relentless. to outwit so
many,
her eyes seeping, if but to wire so
gently.
how have I loved you—a total
stranger,
those hangers as antiques? to
die
in daughters to abort grandfather if
to
seduce Athena. our lives as incomplete
our
souls but ransom, where Alexis
tipped
into Sirach. I was loving aura.
I
was musing from afar. I was close to
distant
appreciation. I was so affixed. it
meant
so little—to have meant so much.
to
feel aloof while cut to marrow if but
to
erupt with foreign agenda. as hated
a
soul, or telic a whisper, or to ponder
sweetness;
our saffron daisies or
symbolic
attraction where I hear it’s
impossible
vibration; as never a
notion,
or ever our aches, those dells we
fathom
at desks. how have I loved you—
so
paranoid, if ever those tapestries? if
to
hold capital or to subjugate clause such
teal
begonias or cries by screams at failure
close
& dreams. how have I loved you?
