I will be wise when I talk about this, which I merely love.
As long as I’ve lived, the need for wisdom
has tortured me, who only loved. What
to say about this, now, when wisdom for me
finally combines with love? The familiar parts
on the brink of integration (a brief car horn):
the way the cat sleeps with head leaning against the arm of the couch,
the twenty dollar bill in my pocket for tonight’s performance,
the quiet of a July Sunday morning,
this part of the world resting up for something,
the young woman with white top who approached me,
as I traversed familiar streets returning with eleven items from the market,
greeted by the dog, sleepily, the day already hot,
then, swooning in a big chair, perusing marginalia by Edgar Allan Poe,
the epigram sprung by a flowery bank of dreams,
the mind rejecting everything, and by that, knowing itself as a mind,
a dream in which I write more of this, because a nap
arrived—a perfect summer’s nap, a few minutes, unplanned.
Sensation and thought at war as they always are,
my flesh, my flesh having thoughts—a dream,
a poem, continuing. The tired theme:
an old-fashioned one, in which you can’t confess
how much you love. Sleep, instead! You know you
must be wise. She, the one you love,
may think, despite some evidence of wisdom,
despite fate’s obscure star,
that you are weak and mad.
But plainly you are.