169

it is so long since my heart has been with yours

shut by our mingling arms through
a darkness where new lights begin and
increase,
since your mind has walked into
my kiss as a stranger
into the streets and colours of a town --

that i have perhaps forgotten
how, always(from
these hurrying crudities
of blood and flesh)Love
coins his most gradual gesture,

and whittles life to eternity

-- after which our separating selves become museums
filled with skillfully stuffed memories