and then I thought of you
in the room wanting space
from me, the only one who loved
you
the only one paying attention

and how you would breathe in the autumn
apple breezes, yellow blossoms,
inhale the wet grass and stand there with me

without any hurry at all,
not for coffee
not food or sex or talk or money
but for the simple
New England briskness
that excites you with its changes
~

This garden is not dead: Still.
I act as if
my presence in your world
is something to tolerate,
rather than to praise!


Fragile, this love of ours
that waxes and wanes from West to East
from where we met
to where I return:

Gevura