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All that I love
I fold over once
And once again
And keep in a box
Or a slit in a hollow post
Or in my shoe.

All that I love?
Why, yes, but for the moment-
And for all time, both.
Something that folds and keeps easy,
Son's note or Dad's one gaudy tie,
A roto picture of a queen,
A blue Indian shawl, even
A money bill.

It's utter sublimation,
A feat, this heart's control
Moment to moment
To scale all love down
To a cupped hand's size

Till seashells are broken pieces
From God's own bright teeth,
And life and love are real
Things you can run and
Breathless hand over
To the merest child.

- Edith L. Tiempo

In Reply

There is no love
but a pressure
that hurts my bones
thins my skin
burns the salt from me
which is God's mark for looking back
to what was rightly harried into asphodel
those cities on the plain

There is no love?
No, for dad's gimcrack baubles
childhood's obscene drawings,
daguerreotypes, silver etchings
of flesh long turned black and bitter
are strangling nuisances
that I chuck into cesspools
which brim over
and drown my memories


To compress my desires
for opalescence or ether
for breasts and the wilting flower
between the legs,
to shutter my lust and self devotion
until I lose my guiding light
is a game for children
or the deranged

We play till our lives mold over
and our soft, pulpy veins
break in the dust
yet hands inevitably record
these exquisite corruptions
passing the blight
to spoiled boys who read.

-Leo-