
— FOR R.
Do numbers count? Exactly how much
is the anniversary
of a mystery? When I finished school
with a diploma in you, we
took up all our time,
meaning those myriad minor-finer details
of How? Why? Where? What? Who?
hardly ever made even half a lip-print on memory.
Those first few Eden leaves grew up largely
unnoticed — seamless
and quite ruly — there
where loving makes a living out of dearth,
in all its forms . . .
In the three spheres,
in the nine heavens,
in the eighteen unspeakably shameless hells
it is you-you-you
whom I with my triple hammered stutter
call SOLE and SINGLE WONDER of the WORLD.