xxxxxiv.

The word, extruded--
        from between our fingers
is not the signal,
nor the sign,
          of the coming,

of better than this:
in the dingy, and dark,
of the room--someone

lost, to the passing,
told me, about how there
was a singer, who

spent his whole life alone,
across the ocean,
near, but not touching, I

will grind my teeth, and fail
again, and over, if--
it can be found, in failure.

xxxxxiii.

if you must be forgot
--then I will not live on nothing
and, if you must be consigned
to the dark, after the day has gone--
then I will remember at the edge
of the evening,

and if I must turn from the parking lot,
to hide the glimmer, under the white
cold light of the lamps, still--

--I will stow, far from the harsh
light of the morning,
this store, and the train rumbles
past the houses,

--of memory

and the headlights blind me, but
in shadow at the edge of
the shrubs, and resting by the walls
      rising over the gravel, I will not

let you fall, unheeded, and I will shudder
in the stairwell,

under the lights, on the silent landing, I
will shake, as the steps rise

to the door, and my feet will whisper your
name, hesitating, across the slats and
the threshold--but

I will not fear, and I will remember you
when the windows blaze,
and the shadows damp the peaks--and false
stars light the valley, as the grass waves,
I will step over into you.