“Nikki, if you were a song
I’d call you jazz

Clap for you
Snap to you

Sing with you
Swing with you

I’d color you Ellington
Elegant

and Essential 
in my life.”

“Today your clear blue eyes are everywhere above me.
The cloudless sky is crisp & bright.
Autumn is now most apparent.
Even as I write,
I am convinced the world is you, so perfect now.
Created to reflect your gaze,
Especially today.

I believe you’re the autumn, the fall.
In love I feel the ferment of it all.
And aging with you is perfection—
This bright light around me welling up,
Overflowing like diamonds of joy,

And although I have no money to buy you presents,
I offer you this poem & a question:
‘How can we ever be poor?’”

“Read to me, my lover
Let’s breed books, and babies, and joy,
And fly for cover.
Hold our noses and jump for Koi. 

Squeeze our fancies, 
Touch our toes,
And loosen our pantsies
To unrestricted prose.”

“T’other day, as I was twining
Roses for a crown to dine in,
What, of all things, midst the heap,
Should I light on, fast asleep,
But the little desperate elf,
The tiny traitor—Love himself!
By the wings I pinched him up
Like a bee, and in a cup
Of my wine I plunged and sank him;
And what d’ye think I did?—I drank him!
Faith, I thought him dead.  Not he!
There he lives with tenfold glee;
And now, this moment, with his wings
I feel him tickling my heart-strings.”

“You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.
You let a weed grow by the mulberry
and a mulberry grow by the house.
So close, in the personal quiet
of a windy night, it brushes the wall
and sweeps away the day till we sleep.
A child said it, and it seemed true:
‘Things that are lost are all equal.’
But it isn’t true.  If I lost you,
the air wouldn’t move, nor the tree grow.
Someone would pull the weed, my flower.
The quiet wouldn’t be yours. If I lost you,
I’d have to ask the grass to let me sleep.”

“If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye women if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.”

“If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers 
at the bottom of a pond 
and you were to come by 
one evening
when the moon was shining 
down into my dark home 
and stand there at the edge 
of my affection
and think, ‘It’s beautiful 
here by this pond. I wish 
somebody loved me,’
I’d love you and be your catfish 
friend and drive such lonely 
thoughts from your mind 
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, ‘I wonder 
if there are any catfish 
in this pond? It seems like 
a perfect place for them.'” 

“If you were drowning, I’d come to the rescue,
wrap you in my blanket and pour hot tea.
If I were a sheriff, I’d arrest you
and keep you in the cell under lock and key.

If you were a bird, I ‘d cut a record
and listen all night long to your high-pitched trill.
If I were a sergeant, you’d be my recruit,
and boy I can assure you you’d love the drill.

If you were Chinese, I’d learn the languages,
burn a lot of incense, wear funny clothes.
If you were a mirror, I’d storm the Ladies,
give you my red lipstick and puff your nose.

If you loved volcanoes, I’d be lava
relentlessly erupting from my hidden source.
And if you were my wife, I’d be your lover
because the church is firmly against divorce.”

“Dark wine reminds me of you.
The burgundies and cabernets.
The tang and thrum and hiss
that spiral like Egyptian silk,
blood bit from a lip, black
smoke from a cigarette.

Nights that swell like cork.
This night. A thousand.
Under a single lamplight.
In public or alone.
Very late or very early.
When I write my poems.

Something of you still taut
still tugs still pulls,
a rope that trembled
hummed between us.
Hummed, love, didn’t it.
Love, how it hummed.”

“This morning as I walked along the lakeshore,
I fell in love with a wren
and later in the day with a mouse
the cat had dropped under the dining room table.

In the shadows of an autumn evening,
I fell for a seamstress
still at her machine in the tailor’s window,
and later for a bowl of broth,
steam rising like smoke from a naval battle.

This is the best kind of love, I thought,
without recompense, without gifts,
or unkind words, without suspicion,
or silence on the telephone.

The love of the chestnut,
the jazz cap and one hand on the wheel.

No lust, no slam of the door—
the love of the miniature orange tree,
the clean white shirt, the hot evening shower,
the highway that cuts across Florida.

No waiting, no huffiness, or rancor—
just a twinge every now and then

for the wren who had built her nest
on a low branch overhanging the water
and for the dead mouse,
still dressed in its light brown suit.

But my heart is always propped up
in a field on its tripod,
ready for the next arrow.

After I carried the mouse by the tail
to a pile of leaves in the woods,
I found myself standing at the bathroom sink
gazing down affectionately at the soap,

so patient and soluble,
so at home in its pale green soap dish.
I could feel myself falling again
as I felt its turning in my wet hands
and caught the scent of lavender and stone.”

“There are two men in the world, who
Are crossing my path, I see,
And one is the man I love,
The other’s in love with me.

And one exists in the nightly dreams
Of my somber soul evermore,
The other stands at the door of my heart
But I will not open the door.

And one once gave me a vernal breath
Of happiness squandered—alack!
The other gave me his whole long life
And got never an hour back.

And one lives hot in the song of my blood
Where love is pure, unbound—
The other is one with the humdrum day
Where all our dreams are drowned.

Between these two every woman stands,
In love, beloved, and white—
And once every hundred years it happens
That both in one unite.”

“Hearts and darts and maids and men,
Vows and valentines are here.  
Will you give yourself again,
Love me for another year?

Those who give themselves forever,
All contingencies to cover,
Know but once the kind and clever
Strategies of loved and lover;

Rather let the year renew
Rituals of happiness;
When the season comes to woo,
Let me ask, and you say yes.  

Love me for another year,
Here is heaven enough to climb,
If we measure, now and here,
Each delicious step of time.”

“Her face         Her tongue       Her wit
so fair              so sweet           so sharp
first bent        then drew         then hit 
mine eye          mine ear            my heart 

Mine eye         Mine ear            My heart 
to like             to learn             to love 
her face          her tongue        her wit 
doth lead        doth teach        doth move 

Her face         Her tongue        Her wit
with beams     with sound         with art 
doth blind       doth charm       doth knit 
mine eye         mine ear            my heart 

Mine eye         Mine ear           My heart 
with life          with hope          with skill 
her face          her tongue        her wit 
doth feed        doth feast        doth fill

O face             O tongue          O wit 
with frowns     with checks      with smart 
wrong not        vex not             wound not 
mine eye         mine ear            my heart 

This eye         This ear            This heart 
shall joy          shall yield         shall swear 
her face          her tongue       her wit 
to serve          to trust            to fear.” 

“I dare not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that, or this,
I might grow proud the while.

No, no, the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee.”

“I love thee—I love thee!
‘Tis all that I can say;—
It is my vision in the night,
My dreaming in the day;
The very echo of my heart,
The blessing when I pray,
I love thee—I love thee,
Is all that I can say.

I love thee—I love thee!
Is ever on my tongue;
In all my proudest poesy
That chorus still is sung;
It is the verdict of my eyes,
Amidst the gay and young:
I love thee—I love thee,
A thousand maids among.

I love thee—I love thee!
Thy bright and hazel glance,
The mellow lute upon those lips,
Whose tender tones entrance;
But most, dear hart of hearts, thy proofs
That still these words enhance,
I love thee—I love thee;
Whatever be thy chance.”

“O love! what art thou, Love? the ace of hearts,
Tramping earth’s kings and queens, and all its suits;
A player, masquerading many parts
In life’s odd carnival; —a boy that shoots,
From ladies’ eyes, such mortal woundy darts;
A gardener, pulling heart’s-ease up by the roots;
The Puck of Passion—partly false—part real—
A marriageable maiden’s ‘beau-ideal.’

O Love, what art thou, Love? a wicked thing,
Making green misses spoil their work at school;
A melancholy man, cross-gartering?
Grave ripe-faced wisdom made an April fool?
A younster, tilting at a wedding-ring?
A sinner, sitting on a cuttie stool?
A Ferdinand de Something in a hovel,
Helping Matilda Rose to make a novel?

O Love! what art thou, Love? one that is bad
with palpitations of the heart—like mine—
A poor bewildered maid, making so sad
A necklace of her garters—fell design!
A poet, gone unreasonably mad,
Ending his sonnets with a hempen line?
O Love!—but whither now? forgive me, pray;
I’m not the first that Love hath led astray.” 

“I have been temperate always,
But I am like to be very drunk
With your coming.
There have been times
I feared to walk down the street
Lest I should reel with the wine of you.
And jerk against my neighbors
As they go by.
I am parched now, and my tongue is horrible in my mouth,
But my brain is noisy
With the clash and gurgle of filling wine-cups.”

“When you came, you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness.
Now you are like morning bread,
Smooth and pleasant.
I hardly taste you at all for I know your savor:
But I am completely nourished.”

“I was a child, and she was a child
Though her tastes were adult Feejee—
She loved with a love that was more than love,
My yearning Cannibalee,
With a love that could take me roast or fried
Or raw, as the case might be.

And that is the reason that long ago,
In that island near the sea,
I had to turn the tables and eat
My ardent Cannibalee—
Not really because I was fond of her,
But to check her fondness for me.

But the stars never rise but I think of the size
Of my hot-potted Cannibalee,
And the moon never stares but it brings me nightmares
Of my spare-rib Cannibalee;

And all the night-tide she is restless inside,
Is my still indigestible dinner-belle bride,
In her pallid tomb, which is Me,
In her solemn sepulcher, Me.”

“It should happen
on a train a face
you see in passing

a glance a kiss
just for the asking
it should happen

in a room where tea
is served in thin china
cups and mendelssohn

or Brahms musical verse
sugars the air
or perhaps it happens

in a bar where Dexter
Gordon and his crowd
of hoarse laughter

wail the mighty sax
and your friend Gordon
calls suddenly

from Costa Rica
out-of-the-blue and says
do you remember? and you

recognize only the steel
blue of the northern sky
forlorn as winter

or a note welded thin 
to sorrow the horizon
so clear so close

so naked a love
that should come
should happen soon”

“At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand. O.K.
She gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
A bunch of consolation.
We take our time
Down the steep carpetway
As I wish silently
That the stairs were endless.”

“I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

I hunger for your sleek laugh,
your hands the color of a savage harvest,
hunger for the pale stones of your fingernails,
I want to eat your skin like a whole almond.

I want to eat the sunbeam flaring in your lovely body,
the sovereign nose of your arrogant face,
I want to eat the fleeting shade of your lashes,

and I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.”

(Translated by Stephen Tapscott)

“And if you should leave me
I would say that the ghost 
Of Cassandra
Has passed through
My eyes
I would say that the stars
In their malice 
Merely light up the sky
To stretch my torment
And that the waves crash
On the shores
To bring salt-stings on
My face:
For you re-connect me with
All the lights of the sky
And the salt of the waves
And the myths in the air.
And with your passing 
The evening would become too dark
   To dream in
And the morning
   Too bright.”

“My days have been so wondrous free,
The little birds that fly
With careless ease from tree to tree,
Were but as bless’d as I.

Ask gliding waters, if a tear
Of mine increas’d their stream?
Or ask the flying gales, if e’er
I lent one sigh to them?

But now my former days retire,
And I’m by beauty caught;
The tender chains of sweet desire
Are fix’d upon my thought.

Ye nightingales, ye twisting pines!
Ye swains that haunt the grove!
Ye gentle echoes, breezy winds!
Ye close retreats of love!

With all of nature, all of art,
Assist the dear design;
Oh teach a young, unpractic’d heart
To make my Nancy mine!

The very thought of change I hate,
As much as of despair;
Nor ever covet to be great,
Unless it be for her.

‘Tis true, the passion in my mind
Is mix’d with soft distress;
Yet while the fair I love is kind,
I cannot wish it less.”

“Two Vases stood on the Shelf of Life
As Love came by to look,
One was of priceless cloisonné,
The other of solid common clay.
Which do you think Love took?

He took them both from the Shelf of Life,
He took them both with a smile;
He clasped them both with his finger tips,
And touched them both with caressing lips,
And held them both for a while.

From tired hands Love let them fall,
And never a word was spoken.
One was of priceless cloisonné,
The other of solid common clay.
Which do you think was broken?”

“Nobody’s serious when they’re seventeen.
On a nice night, the hell with beer and lemonade
And the café and the noisy atmosphere!
You walk beneath the linden trees on the promenade.

The lindens smell lovely on a night in June!
The air is so sweet that your eyelids close.
The breeze is full of sounds—they come from the town—
And the scent of beer, and the vine, and the rose…

II

You look up and see a little scrap of sky,
Dark blue and far off in the night,
Stuck with a lopsided star that drifts by
With little shivers, very small and white…

A night in June! Seventeen! Getting drunk is fun.
Sap like champagne knocks your head awry…
Your mind drifts; a kiss rises to your lips
And flutters like a little butterfly…

III

Your heart Crusoes madly through novels, anywhere,
When through the pale pool beneath a street light,
A girl goes by with the most charming air,
In the grim shadow of her father’s dark coat.

And since she finds you marvelously naïve,
While her little heels keep tapping along
She turns, with a quick bright look…
And on your lips, despairing, dies your song.

IV

You are in love. Rented out till fall.
You are in love. Poetic fires ignite you.
Your friends laugh; they won’t talk to you at all.
Then one night, the goddess deigns to write you!

That night… you go back to the café, to the noisy atmosphere;
You sit and order beer, or lemonade…
Nobody’s serious when they’re seventeen,
And there are linden trees on the promenade.”

“My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple-tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.” 

“Just a handful of cuddleness
All pink and white,
Splashing and laughing
In sheerest delight.
No lovelier sight
Can there possibly be
Than watching my baby
In his miniature sea.

Ten chubby little fingers
And ten wiggly little toes,
Two great brown eyes
And one saucy little nose,
A little rosebud mouth.
Two tiny pearls peeking though.
What could be sweeter?
This I’m asking you.

First he coos and then he splashes,
Giving mother quite a shower.
Oh, how I love to bathe
That precious little flower.
The mop of red-gold curls
That my baby hath.
I wish that you could see
My baby in his bath.”

“You and I
Have so much love,
That it
Burns like a fire,
In which we bake a lump of clay
Molded into a figure of you
And a figure of me.
Then we take both of them,
And break them into pieces,
And mix the pieces with water,
And mold again a figure of you,
And a figure of me.
I am in your clay.
You are in my clay.
In life we share a single quilt.
In death we will share one coffin.”

“Like water rushing down
the river rapids,
we may be parted
by a rock, but in the end
we will be one again.”

“It is true love because
I put on eyeliner and a concerto and make pungent 
     observations about the great issues of the day
Even when there’s no one here but him,
And because 
I do not resent watching the Green Bay Packers
Even though I am philosophically opposed to 
     football,
And because
When he is late for dinner and I know he must be
     either having an affair or lying dead in the
     middle of the street.
I always hope he’s dead.
It’s true love because
If he said quit drinking martinis but I kept drinking
     them and the next morning I couldn’t get out of 
     bed,
He wouldn’t tell me he told me,
And because
He is willing to wear unironed undershorts
Out of respect for the fact that I am philosophically
     opposed to ironing,
And because
If his mother was drowning and I was drowning and
     he had to choose one of us to save,
He says he’d save me.
It’s true love because
When he went to San Francisco on business while I
     had to stay home with the painters and the
     exterminator and the baby who was getting the chicken pox,
He understood why I hated him,
And because
When I said that playing the stock market was
     juvenile and irresponsible and then the stock I
     wouldn’t let him buy went up twenty-six points,
I understood why he hated me,
And because
Despite cigarette cough, tooth decay, acid
     indigestion, dandruff, and other features of
     married life that tend to dampen the fires of 
     passion,
We still feel something
We can call 
True love.”

“A hasty kiss, a happy laugh,
A quick goodnight, a sigh,
Another night in Paradise
Has speedily hastened by.

A parting clasp, a tender glance,
The sound of hurrying feet,
My dream is gone, I’m left alone
Agazin’ up the street.

One final wave, a closing door,
I homely loft do seek.
A long last glance at her photograph,
And so to bed, and sleep.”

“‘Do you still want me?’ you asked.
And I said, ‘You don’t have to ask me every day.’
You said, ‘Well, do you?’
And I said, ‘Yes.’

But what I really said within my heart was,
‘Want him?’
Do I want him?
In an exotic, quixotic way
I want him.
I want him because 
I can walk with him,
And he talks to me about the things I like to talk about.
And he says funny things to me,
And sometimes he thinks they’re so funny
He says them twice.
And I know him better than
Any woman has any right to know a man.
And with all that I find
Just when I think I know him best,
I know him not at all.
And all I really want is a chance to know him better,
And that takes time.
And I would like to take all the time given me
To know him better
Which is the real reason
I cannot bear to be away from him.
‘Yes.'”