I've written thousands
of letters
with your name
and mine
sealed them
with thousands of beats
my heart kept on shouting.
Sometimes
I ask myself
Why wouldn't
I send it to you?

Then right after
I'd get the answer...

there are letters
better
left unopened

Pink confused with white
flowers and flowers reversed
take and spill the shaded flame
darting it back
into the lamp’s horn

petals aslant darkened with mauve

red where in whorls
petal lays its glow upon petal
round flamegreen throats

petals radiant with transpiercing light
contending
              above
the leaves
reaching up their modest green
from the ***’s rim

and there, wholly dark, the ***
gay with rough moss.

1680

Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few—love at all.