When someone dies, the clothes are so sad. They have outlived
their usefulness and cannot get warm and full.
You talk to the clothes and explain that he is not coming back

as when he showed up immaculately dressed in slacks and plaid jacket
and had that beautiful smile on and you’d talk.
You’d go to get something and come back and he’d be gone.

You explain death to the clothes like that dream.
You tell them how much you miss the spouse
and how much you miss the pet with its little winter sweater.

You tell the worn raincoat that if you talk about it,
you will finally let grief out. The ancients etched the words
for battle and victory onto their shields and then they went out

and fought to the last breath. Words have that kind of power
you remind the clothes that remain in the drawer, arms stubbornly
folded across the chest, or slung across the backs of chairs,

or hanging inside the dark closet. Do with us what you will,
they faintly sigh, as you close the door on them.
He is gone and no one can tell us where.

He goes along,
   in his thin flesh,
   narrow bones,
   slow blood,
   old hat,
   old clothes,
   old shoes,
singing for love, battling for love.
He will go down,
   in thinner flesh,
   narrower bones,
   slower blood,
   older hat,
   older clothes,
   older shoes,
battling for love, dying for love.
He will be put away,
   in a thin box
   down a narrow slit
   of the old earth,
growing for love, rising for love:
his initials carved
   on a thin seed,
   narrow seed,
   slow seed,
the carving as slow
   as he was slow
carving his K on a song.

^{To a Political Shrimp, or, Fly upon the Wheel}

The man that doth an Elephant pursue
Whose capture gains a mighty price,
Amidst the chace, heeds not the barking crew,
Or lesser game of rats and mice.

On ocean’s waste who chace the royal flag
Stop not to take the privateer;
Who mean to seize the steed, neglect the nag;
No squirrel-hunter kills a deer.

Reptile! your venom ever spits in vain—
To honour’s coat no drop adheres:—
To court!—return to Britain’s tyrant reign,
White-wash her king, and scowr her peers.

Some scheming knaves, that strut in courtly guise,
May vile abuse, through you, impart—
But they that on no Treasury lean, despise
Your venal pen—your canker’d heart.

When we two parted
   In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
   To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
   Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
   Sorrow to this.

The dew of the morning
   Sunk chill on my brow— 
It felt like the warning
   Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
   And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
   And share in its shame.

They name thee before me,
   A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me—
   Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
   Who knew thee too well—
Long, long shall I rue thee,
   Too deeply to tell.

In secret we met—
   In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
   Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
   After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
   With silence and tears.

The truth is that I fall in love
so easily because

it's easy.
It happens

a dozen times some days.
I've lived whole lives,

had children,
grown old, and died

in the arms of other women
in no more time

than it takes the 2-train
to get from City Hall to Brooklyn,

which brings me back
to you: the only one

I fall in love with
at least once every day—

not because
there are no other
 
lovely women in the world,
but because each time,

dying in their arms,
I call your name.