THE DOORPOSTS AND THE COVERED WINDOWS
For that I once have loved you, that’s for sure.
The rest not – whether you existed
and if, what colour eyes then, green at times,
at others grey, a swarm of swallows once
shot out of them. What kind. Those swift ones
that can’t walk right, mating takes place in the air.
What happened. You got
ill or something, lost from sight, there was lots to do,
I had another child I think, forgot you
until I heard you tonight, impossible hour,
come it’s time. Leave everything, come outside,
I’m waiting for you by the gate.
But when I stood there, the bolt
was loose, it clanged in the wind
against the post and I shot it home and went back,
thinking of you, that godknows you really had
stood there somehow, had undone
the gate, that I have loved you once and that
the wood hung on the hinges out of true.