Don’t leave, she said to me last night. Her name means Light To Me.
Don’t leave this dooming feeling. Don’t jump. Her name means Unjump
The Darkness. Staying is a kind of writing, she said. Writing is a kind
of loving. Loving sticks a widget into the machinery of doubt.
Sticks it out. She knows what I’m afraid of. Biggest grief.
Tunnel of unforgiveness. She knows stay and say are two siblings
walking home in the rain. And I do wonder how to love without
dissolving, how to stay without unloving. Isaac Luria in the 16th
century argued God wrought the world because without it, God had no
expression for compassion, generosity. God might have been a giver,
but how can anyone cup a hand around another hand
              if there’s no other
yet, just infinite beforeness. Knock knock, the lemon squeezer says,
Who’s there, says infinite beforeness, It’s me,
              the stainless steel responds,
I’m God, you’re citrus, let’s start a world. Nobody’s a mother without
somebody to blame. Nobody’s born unwedged between dirt and sky.
It takes something round to wrap round something round, press down,
press hard and love comes out. THIS ISN’T HOW LOVING GOES,
I’m yelling at Isaac Luria’s grave, blue as a thwack of sky on stolen
land. The thing about staying, she’s saying, is staying
              drapes itself over everything
you’re scared of. Like a blanket full of button holes, and stars wedged
into them. The thing about blankets is they’re less threatening
              than love.
Her care pins me to a place called Here. Her name means Generous
To Me, and Pressing Hard With Buttons. I’m trying to say Yes
              to the holes
where buttons go. Yes to the cupped hand before fruit, to the sting
of juice. I could live here between dirt and sky, grow a garden
in the storm drain. I could grow the garden here—Edenic river
of honey, milk, river of balsam, of wine. I could spread out here
and stay. Pin my fears to paper, regret and what they call
“The Great Friendship Recession.” THIS ISN’T HOW
LOVING GOES! I’m yelling just before the world
begins. The world gets made each morning.
And we’ve emptied all the garden’s fields.

That you are fair or wise is vain,
Or strong, or rich, or generous;
You must have also the untaught strain
That sheds beauty on the rose. 
There is a melody born of melody, 
Which melts the world into a sea. 
Toil could never compass it, 
Art its height could never hit,
It came never out of wit,
But a music music-born
Well may Jove and Juno scorn.
Thy beauty, if it lack the fire
Which drives me mad with sweet desire, 
What boots it? what the soldier’s mail
Unless he conquer and prevail?
What all the goods thy pride which lift, 
If thou pine for another’s gift?
Alas! that one is born in blight,
Victim of perpetual slight;—
When thou lookest in his face,
Thy heart saith, Brother! go thy ways. 
None shall ask thee what thou doest, 
Or care a rush for what thou knowest. 
Or listen when thou repliest,
Or remember where thou liest,
Or how thy supper is sodden,—
And another is born
To make the sun forgotten.
Surely he carries a talisman
Under his tongue;
Broad are his shoulders, and strong, 
And his eye is scornful,
Threatening, and young.
I hold it of little matter,—
Whether your jewel be of pure water,
A rose diamond or a white,—
But whether it dazzle me with light.
I care not how you are drest,
In the coarsest, or in the best,
Nor whether your name is base or brave, 
Nor for the fashion of your behavior,— 
But whether you charm me,
Bid my bread feed, and my fire warm me,
And dress up nature in your favor.
One thing is forever good, 
That one thing is success,— 
Dear to the Eumenides,
And to all the heavenly brood. 
Who bides at home, nor looks abroad,
Carries the eagles, and masters the sword.