“Something we cannot recapture, something whose content but not form we know, something quotidian and trivial and previously unperceived which revealed to Carriego that the universe (which gives itself completely in each instant, in any place, and not only in the works of Dumas) was in the present too, in Palermo, Argentina, in 1904. “Enter, for the gods are here also?” said Heraclitus of Ephesus to the people who found him warming his hands at the kitchen stove.” ~ J.L. Borges

The summer evening air is dense As if it were itself sweating out The day’s heat, a husky dog Wagging its tail, lolling its tongue.
On the radio Billie keeps insi- Sting for “all or nothing at all.”

Into this you step in, my cool Glittering grass snake, wet Hair slicked back, wrists Smelling of magnolias closing Shop for the day, put your chin On my shoulder to look at

What my eyes are hastily scanning
In the book I am reading before dark, And smile your shy smile, my sweet (g){od^2e}(ss) as your index finger Underlines a line again for my eyes: “Enter, for the gods are here also.”

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked ~ A Chinese Fortune Cookie, June 13, 2005

Darling, I when place My blistered heart blown up With the noise of words, And wearing in a mask Of unreasoned sadness In your warm hands,

You take it as if it were The red balloon of your Childhood (still so alive!), And then float it high up On the string of time, with Me laughing in delight!

(After Tennessee Williams)

Evening light is shining through The rain, and is not going away. Don’t get up. You don’t have to Leave if you wish to, with me, stay.

I give you few fine feathers in a jar (To brush off old pain from your hair) And dandelions, those fortunetellers Of roads, their heads nodding in the air.

I lay my head on the table as you pour tea, And watch a starling move on your arm. “Dark birthmark, what is your secret?” I ask, touching skin, familiar and warm.

A Whip-poor-will seems to cry “O, Sadness Has no end, happiness does.” So shrill A song for so pleasant a time, when even My erratic heart, always desirous, is still.

How soon ends another day! For now stay. Forever stay!