Wither  

If you count the days beyond recall,
notice first how my voice has changed--
the range is all fucked up, disjointed by time,
solid enough but somewhat an echo
of an earlier rhyme. You’ve got to figure
my body’s passed, too. The skin, by now
shelved by scars, will not admit it once
held stars against the tightest thighs--

this lover and that has slimmed by
on haste. Nothing to deliver, nothing
to conceive. So now I count the planets
swimming in the sky like lost birds,
I count each time I bend heavenward
like a fool without a mission, trying to make

the last transmission of the seed, this utter
and unholy need diffused by blackness
unrequited and unknown. In my threadbare
speech the need to know I have regained,
and only the solitude of your undressing
keeps me here, above the fray
like some unspeakable and worthy cloud
that calls me to account, that simple
moment of lust when all is equal

and you, supple on the couch, extend
the life of your moment into each corner
of my eyes: what its like to die for you,
for once, inside your arms, how the hollow
of your back still arches in response
to different constellations, all this time.