Ago

i

If not for the sweetness of the reward
If not for the delicacy of the superb fleeting instant
Would not our fumblings be absurd
Reaching for that instant of connexion

ii

It must have been a thousand years ago

iii

A glimpse
And something exquisite in that glimpse
A shape a turning a possibility a sweetness an idea
A reward in that glimpse
And the glimpse its own reward

iv

Here is a room
And here is a room
A thousand years ago
The room is six years old
With spots of dust drifting in the window light
And the room is twenty
With a secluded bed full of two strangers
Who know each other
A little

v

And here in between
Is a street of cats in the sweet impossible evening
A street eight years old
With two strangers
Under the swerving sky of stars
Too small to know what they cannot know
(But one of them knows he longs for something
He cannot know)

vi

And the room too was impossible
And its dust fluttered as it watched
Two strangers
Under the behaved ceiling of invisible dust
Too little to know what
(Though one of them knew he needed something to know
A sweetness a reward a glimpse
Only what)

vii

But the second room was not impossible
And the furniture
In the second room barely creaked
In the basement
In the dimmed basement of the forgetful house
And the two strangers
(Who knew there was a thing that longed to be known)
The two strangers who knew
Each other a little
Knew each other a little
Because there was so much that was impossible
In the instant that was fleeting
And superb

viii

A thousand years ago

ix

And the room was left behind
Buried beneath the dust of other rooms
And the street was abandoned to the cats
With the sky in their eyes
In the impossible evening

x

And the second room
Is dead
Shattered against the ancient cliffs
That longed too much to be known
(That waited for the thing that longed to know them)
And the sweetness
And all the moments of connexion
Are a glimpse a possibility
Its only reward

xi

And here is a room
A third room
In a house far distant from the house of drizzling dust
From the street of slinking stars
From the house of maps
That rustled as they spread over the furniture
But could never be refolded
Entirely
And would never be opened again.

xii

Not in a thousand years