I spent the afternoon

reading poems before the fire, alternating

between Rexroth on love and Harrison

on death – one after the other, first love

and then death, and then love

and then again death – but then

I began to cheat (as I sometimes do)

going from love to love when I’d had

too much death, or death and death again

when love had become too much. love

and death, diastole and systole. I wonder

if I just keep reading until the poetry

exhausts itself, will this all end with death?

or will death’s cold hand yield in the end

to the exquisite supplications of love?

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