“like a pathway through a forest, like a carpet for royalty, it shows me the way”

“Like a White Russian drinking tea in Paris, marooned in the twentieth century, I wander back, try to regain hose distant pathways; I become too maudlin, lose myself. Weep...I sit in the chair and ooze like a sponge.”

“Variation on the Word SleepI would like to watch you sleeping,which may not happen.I would like to watch you,sleeping. I would like to sleepwith you, to enteryour sleep as its smooth dark waveslides over my head.and walk with you through that lucentwavering forest of bluegreen leaveswith its watery sun & three moonstowards the cave where you must descend,towards your worst fearI would like to give you the silverbranch, the small white flower, the oneword that will protect youfrom the grief at the centerof your dream, from the griefat the center. I would like to followyou up the long stairwayagain & becomethe boat that would row you backcarefully, a flamein two cupped handsto where your body liesbeside me, and you enterit as easily as breathing inI would like to be the airthat inhabits you for a momentonly. I would like to be that unnoticed& that necessary.”

“...and nostalgia swept through Jimmy like a sudden hunger.”

“The way love feels is always only approximate. I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was.”

“The newspaper journalists like to believe the worst; they can sell more papers that way, as one of them told me himself; for even upstanding and respectable people dearly love to read ill of others.”

“The heart with letters on it shining like a light bulb through the trim hole painted in the chest, art history.”