For Arl

(1) I read your poems you told me Enumerating names that belong only to ladies So you leaf through the memory Cached in words in search of my ambiguities And I laughed through the night At your mortal frailty, for how could I write Of love random after your flight That crippled me so badly I wouldn't trust light Nor song, nor pure flower bloom Beauty is a tragic thing you know, to behold it Is to be intimate with hope's doom How could I love after you, I had no spirit for it For when you were gone I saw long Miles alone of desert sands that span from dawn To bitter night of the subtle wrong Where lynched and quartered my heart was drawn. (2) Lady, you are back again, and this tree You left so green and full of leaves Have shed them brown in wilted poetry And I think the cold wind also deceives For look at the grass The same thing happened when the sun In torrid summer pass Ice or fire, I lament both and trust none O remember now to read me like a parable I do not keep my meanings plain in sight On the surface meet me where I am affable You are forever to me an eternal delight.