City trees, an interval of silence, noon.
(The moment Mahlers through me.)

Ought thought: a narrowness
birth-canaled towards the truth of her.

To sip her in a cup of water:
water’s whirlwind, comprehended.

A laurel, deep within its winter sleep,
dreams of her, and is devoured.

Verb tenses divide us: mine so often past,
hers always present, present, present.

Elsewhere, we flicker at the edge of vision:
quiet birds in walnut, quince.

I pass the bow across her naked back,
the sound she makes a turning into womb.

The feel of her, in every guise, an oracle.
(Every loss a ghost foreseen by her.)

Clutched by voices, I intone my recognitions,
taste the molten gold of her in praising it.