On World-Making

To love is to tell the story of the world.     There was

an ocean with a boat     mountains     a meadow     too painful to stare

at directly. Haven’t I been here before? Yes.     No:     not quite here.

“It is not as if,” the philosopher writes, “an I exists

independently over here and then simply loses a you over there.”

In the mist, a man rigs the Suzelle, little red boat.

Loved labored for months, learning to tie the right knot. The exact

and only knot that will keep the vessel tethered. She rehearsed

for the worst possible thing. “The attachment to you,” it is written,

“is part of what composes who I am.” I know/knew

those hands, hers. I watched her dust the sourdough with flour

at midnight a moon between her fingers.     Gone

went Loved. But the half-world of her in me

was me.     It was lit by the moon.