ABSTRACT
for Linda Orr
"Yet I realized . . . how much she needed my love, and I enveloped her within it, pretending the need was mine."
—André Gide The Immoralist I'm yours, dearest, as are the winter towns, their heady wines and soups. My lungs fill. You do well in this air's thinness, the snow spattering against your mouth. You love a sudden crack of ice or larches rushing at us: landmarks. Like history, you need them. Then, now, next month—always the return to rooms in the evening, hearing far off the harness bells and noticing how fast shadows race up the wooded slope. Tender vigil . . . how kind you are! And god how your eyes go through me as if I were the infection itself—unbearable unless viewed as winter landscape. This evening, I'll drink your wild face. That sad wine will slide from my mouth. Let me offer you my handkerchief, and toss this dark red luxury in your lap. The harness bells, hear them now? Harsh, perfect, consummate. In this odd transparency of snow my furs grow stiff around my shoulders.