In modesty conditioned, here concerned
with flights of disappearing stars, or words
which in themselves contain a universe
wherein the text is warmth, not vacant space
between the scattered objects of our love
remembrances of light cast off those spheres
 
falling between us now, as curses, you
assert our body is the only world,
and that I in my emptiness assume
japonica is a mere pattern, or
a cipher. But these petals seem to me
more uncelestial than you accuse
 
and if I tend to lean out from the rail
it may not be for jonquils- wordspurge too
like broken glass is my delight, more real
than self-illuminated shadows, when
our bodies fail, what shall you seek but this:
that in my song I failed to hold the earth.