THE SPACE
after Cavafy
Those houses, cafes, bars ... the old purlieus
I've haunted, year after year -
I conjured you when I was happy, when I was sad:
you were my detail, my inner circumstance.
I have turned you into pure notion.
* * *
THE WRECKBut what lovers we were, what lover,
Even when it was all over -
the deadweight bull-black wines we swung
towards each other rang and rang
like bells of blood, our own great hearts.
We slung the drunk boat out of port
and watched our unreal sober life
unmoor, a continent of grief;
The candlelight strange on our faces
like the silent tiny blazes
And coruscations of its wars.
We blew them out and took the stairs
Into the night for the night's work,
stripped off in the timbered dark,
Gently hooked each other on
like aqualungs, and thundered down
To mine our lovely secret wreck.
We surfaced later, breathless, back
To back, then made our way alone
up the mined beach of the dawn.
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