You are my race forward and backward,
and my truth and my lie.

You are sorrow and joy in one cup--
and a sobering high.

You are my wild ally, or I am yours,
and this is the celebration
of our uneasy truce.

x

I give you my heart, as I might give it, tied in a little sack, to a stranger passing on the road--
yet the bird is a heart that flies where it wills, and renders all ******* into illusion,

so you can not keep it,
any more than I could have kept it
in its safe cage.

What use do you have for a wild bird, anyway?