The Lovers
Two cranes in flight, pale sky
smudged with clouds—eternal.
But that’s not what the card
means.
Soft jingle of chimes,
feet wiped clean at the door.
It’s mostly a choice, the reader says,
her voice diaphanous, that needs to be made.
To hold. To beheld.
All summer, figs fell beside my feet.
Bruised burial sites
of pollinating wasps.
How easily pain can be disfigured into a thing
of pleasure.
It was Sappho
who first called eros bittersweet.
I no longer recall what it was
to be in love,
only that it ended.
