The heart of my life was spent on it—
that was my life! And where is it, now,
as this train goes down the mountain for an hour,
six years after divorce,
all that sex, it must be somewhere,
maybe among these wild grasses near the
tracks, or near plants in the sea which drink
salt like milk, as if the scenes of
impermanent love could be stored in tidepools’
gardens, where a mountain steps down into
the sea, then down into the ocean trench, until it
touches the spherical mountain which is
the mantle of the globe. Where seeds fly without
catching or taking, until they turn
to fray—maybe where the children who die before
birth live, or the creatures who die before
conception. Maybe the love made, within a
love that was not lasting, moves in
huge discs of dust beyond our
solar system, but I think not,
I think those kisses, and little gasps, those
sighs and long samurai strokes,
and breast-tips leapt to hardness like sudden
horns on the brow of a milk-fed goat—
I feel it is all nearby, in the hair of the
woods this train now passes, and it lines
roadsides, I can hear the insects singing
in the nerves of the meadow, the made love of a
life is the inner logic of a life,
the home fragrance.