Silent-
ly, at midnight,
the man, mugged and alone,
recalls boyish thoughts of wisdom
and weeps.

Beauty does dematerialize
like the effect of a childhood kiss;
your images anesthetize
thoughts that lead to this.

Her novels were full of everything you:
passive hopes; a burned Matryoshka doll
(Gorbachev); two fist-holes in a wall --
here's an epilogue: indelible, true.

(After reading "At Algeciras - A Meditation Upon Death")

Did you know that you were writing to me
beside the Spanish straits?
(Pensive misery.)
Those words, given up to Death,
reappear now in my breath.

"Impulse is master",
said the learned man.
"It brings disaster
to a pondered plan."

But what about choice?
That's what I've been taught.
Trying speech, no voice
came, instead forethought

echoed through my head:
speak, and you'll be trapped!
I sat, mute as lead;
the man, smiling, clapped.

for the students lost in World War II*

1.
Kids.
Could they have understood this "sacrifice"?

2.
Kids,
on the edge of living,
about to dip into life.

3.
Kids:
epitaphs, Sunday daydreams,
skeletons wrapped in flags.

4.
Kids
whose lives are packed into one plaque
near Hardy Tower, tucked
behind bushes by the biology labs.

5.
Kids
stop every so often,
linger a moment over the names,
mouthing one or two
before scooting off to class.

The only noise is a departing train
when I wake to daylight at eight o'clock.
The slow white edges darkness back in vain,
groping the averageness of the city block.
I know for certain, yet feel half-unsure,
life will always go on --
what about after I'm dead and gone?
Unfounded conviction beginning to blur,
I step outside to steady rain
Confronting an inarticulate pain:

most go unescorted to the grave.

All day long I try pushing back the thought,
try focusing on my tedious work,
but truest fear -- what was and now is not --
deepens like a glacial cirque.
Certainty's fickleness falls far away
as momentary happiness
from nowhere, more or less,
solidifies into one more day.