Can you believe
your death gave birth
to me?

Live or die,
you said insistently.
you chose the second
& the first chose me.

I mourn you.

Is love the sugarcoated
poison that gets us in the
end?

We spoke of men
as often as poems,
We tried to legislate away
the need for love,
the back-seat sex
& earth caressing you.

Why did you do it in
your Mother's bed?
(I know, but also know
I had to ask.)

Our mother's get us
hooked, then leave us
cold, all full-grown
orphans hungering
for love.

You loved a man
who spoke "like greeting
cards."

"He pleasures me
well, but I can't talk
to him.

Poet, we share that awful need
to talk in bed. Love wasn't love
if we could only speak
in tongues.

& the intensity of unloved
increased until the motor,
the running motor could
no longer power the driver,

& you, poet, with miles
to go, would rather sleep.

Between the suicide pills
& giggly vodkas in algonquin..
Between your round granny glasses
& your eyes blue as glaciers..
Between your stark mother-hunger
& your courage you knew...
you knew there was only
one poem, we all were writing.

No Competition..
the poem belongs to
everyone & God.
I jumped out of your
suicide car & into his arms.

Your death was mine,
I ate it & spit it out.

Now, I sit by the lake
writing to you.
I love a man who makes
my fingers ache.

His beard is distinguishing gray,
his eyes blue as the deepest ocean
& the amazing plum of his tongue
sweetens my brain.

He is like nobody since
I love him-
He manhood sinks
deep within my heart

I write to you off
somewhere in the clouds..
I tap the table like a spiritualist.

Sex is a part of death;
that much I know,
your voice was earth,
your eyes glacier blue,
your slender torso
& long American legs
drape across the huge
Midwestern sky.

I want to tell you
"Wait, don't do it yet,
Love is the poison,
Ann, but love eats death."

SAS