What’s in your mind, my dove, my coney?
—W. H. Auden
I’ll never quote again “my dove, my coney,”
nor guess the mystery of what you want.
I’ll focus on my work, and make some money
to spend my days remembering. I can’t
convince myself it’s not because a curse
has cast its karmic spear and run me through,
nor make last Summer happen in reverse
to try again, nor cry my way back to
our old apartment. Satan cannot die
his way to Heaven whence he came, win back
the love of God, any more than I
can scale the Garden wall and walk back
in to you, or hide my heart’s red horror with a fig
leaf. Now I’m bleeding sonnets like a stuck pig.
