Now is the sad decline
Of everything that’s mine:
The frozen ground that was my hope,
You, who I held onto, and the rope
Swing that sang over the valley,
Its green more green than green,
A vista that is ours, but never enough seen,
Or that evening when, smiling, you called me into the alley
And suddenly kissed me,
The bright, sumptuous apartments
One could glimpse into,
The boulevards fading; you almost saw them, too;
The bricks haphazardly leading into the park
Where we laughed before dark,
And then, when dark, as we did often,
Hidden, the kisses came more often;
And weren’t you surprised by the fame
Of the day? The day was always the same,
I knew, the same this time:
Not quite the same, a forest of pine,
Rain, desolation, sunlight, and then, decline.
