In the end you do what the voice tells you.
It says forget, you forget.
It says to begin again, you begin again.
                      (Louise Gluck from “March” NYer 3/31/08)

1)  November 1996
                                      The first time we met
                                      for a certain kind of knowledge
                                      you appeared rail thin
                                      from rejection, stood
                                      unclothed
                                      in front of my mirror,
                                      curved and firm
                                      brushing your hair
                                      as the preamble
                                      to my embrace.
                                      Mea culpa, mea culpa,
I intoned from beneath the sheets.
Afterwars, we looked
out the window to see
Venus holding her place above Jupiter,
you began pacing back and forth,
pouring out your elation
from a dipper of intoxicating
liquor…..a new, not duplicitous flavor.

2)  October 2015
Again we have the sky of fall:
summer triangle bending over,
the great Scorpion inches away 
from the western trees, dogs barking
up the darkness of the south.
Our lovers’ pact is scarred like old Samsonite,
but still intact, a part of the luggage we carry
on our Autumn trip to the fading colors
of old mountains.
We’ve told the mirror Good Bye.
Our hostel is a tent,
your form is rounded and full of intent,
I’ve become stubbled with stubborn ferns.
We see the twin dippers 
shine through our translucent awning.
No one can be forced to love,
we let the earth drag us into it.

3)  June 2026
From different rooms the night
envelopes us with the silence
of 10,000 fireflies. With our up & down
we’re Romeo and Juliet in reverse.
Before any light in the east
we meet on the front varanda,
kiss on the lips, find our way
toward the smootness of the old road.