Then this next one is shaped like a rose
and I insisted that the stem be crooked.
"Of the twelve, only you still looked up,
lovesick one, one overcome by lust.
The moment dictated what I did.
The greenery wet, the attar expelled, a crest.
What if we were to meet again?
Once more, pale warmth.
Last Tuesday, my letter went to her early.
I must be willing to change, mailing her that letter.
Letter on top of letter, summer saga,
the paper open in every direction,
quavery phantom letters in lieu of petals, down to lost time.
Letter on top of letter falls under the wheels.
All of her youth was bitter to remember.
Her sweet rye king sandwiches, the sticky honey.
Presence, absence, a change of worlds.
Your indifference grows.
My patience attenuates.
The facets of a letter refolded.
She'd have refolded the letter, her lips closed tight.
A change of worlds.
A train pulling away into a far, flat land.
The brain enters into a drizzle, a continuo, a change of worlds,
a change of worlds.
How was it for her?
Did she die easy?
Last Thursday or Friday, my letter went to her.
I do not know, my friend.
I was not there.
I can name the year I had them, had
taken them in and photographed them, the one-colored roses.
In August 1914, Germany invaded France, and the war began.
I held in my hand a passage for New York
from Marseilles, paper for my future.
Though they made their goodbyes to me
in the tenderest beige of the day,
they could hardly believe the going away.
Now I understand.
They never wanted to be photographed,
or painted either.
Now I think I understand.
They wanted to be turned into glass, translucent
and stained."