there's a reason why our magnetic fields have become so distant
it wasn't because the trigger was pressed too hard against my soft
temple, it was written in the stars that change is the only constant
and hope is only for beginners and i've been dipped too far into
the creasefolds of your fragile complexity of the book you're busy
writing, and i know you want to rip me out of those pages, i am
the aftermath of a broken shield that i didn't know was ripe enough
for others to dig into, but i can never get you completely out of my system,
like a hidden computer virus that i never really meant to obtain, it just
all started almost like a big bang, with a shotgun mouth and these weak
limbs that pulls it's own weight, i didn't mean to push my luck so far

Two years ago on Valentine's Day
We had an attempt at reconciliation
And did 69 on a small sweaty couch
In a karaoke bar.

One year ago on Valentine's Day
You avoided eye contact with me and this year
You'll probably kiss someone else
And not talk to me but
That's okay.

Because it'll be just like three years ago
When I didn't know you and
I had a pretty good day.

I don't know. Maybe it won't be exactly like that.
I'm sorry, I'm not trying to deceive myself or anything,
It's just hard to say what real and what's
An admission
Of incompatibility.

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

1277

While we were fearing it, it came—
But came with less of fear
Because that fearing it so long
Had almost made it fair—

There is a Fitting—a Dismay—
A Fitting—a Despair
’Tis harder knowing it is Due
Than knowing it is Here.

They Trying on the Utmost
The Morning it is new
Is Terribler than wearing it
A whole existence through.

I could love you
as dry roots love rain.
I could hold you
as branches in the wind
brandish petals.
Forgive me for speaking so soon.

    Let your heart look
    on white sea spray
    and be lonely.

    Love is a fool star.

    You and a ring of stars
    may mention my name
    and then forget me.

    Love is a fool star.