Love is pleasure. But hate
becomes love’s fate—
since paradox is everywhere.
You know it’s true.
Even now paradox is destroying you.
But not me! Can that be?
Have I reasoned paradox away
in my poetry?
By the slightest measurement
I know what paradox has meant.
They agonize: what is poetry for?
It seems beauty is made to be
destroyed and wasted. I adore
what dies—this paradox has more
of paradox than even paradox
can describe: the love and hate
which breaks out in every tribe
almost ruined me:
I hated you in my poetry.
I betrayed myself with cleverness
which made me ignorant. Nonetheless,
as you can, at this moment, see
I am fighting back, if not in that,
then in this, poetry
which says I still love you;
pleasure still moves
me in you by the smallest possible degree.