Alteration Finds

1. DELIRIUM, AFTER RIMBAUD

How many hours I kept

that vigil by your side—

entire nights, eyes wide,

as you so sweetly slept.

What I was wondering:

why you yearned to evade

the real. No one has prayed

harder for anything.

It wasn’t for your life

I feared, but for mankind.

Did you, in the end, find

secrets for changing life?

2. DEFACED, AFTER RILKE

The head we cannot know,

nor its bright fruit, the eyes.

And yet the body has

its gaze: a lamp turned low.

Or else the breast would cease

to dazzle, the hips fail

to curve into that smile

that begets more than a kiss.

And flesh would lose all life,

not flare till there’s no blind

it can’t see you behind.

You must change your life.

3. DENIAL, AFTER SEFERIS

The afternoon grew hotter

along our secret shore.

We thirsted in the glare

but couldn’t drink the water.

On golden sand we traced

your name beside the sea.

The wind came like a sigh;

our writing was erased.

How passionate our life,

how full of sex and song,

spirit and heart—how wrong!

And so we changed our life.