It gets out in front of me, out of my reach
I glide along through the night with my dog girl
How does a warm wet spring night get the right to smell so sweet?
So intoxicatingly moist and fragrant
But out of reach?
Midnight hardly seems the middle of the night
In this latitude its position changes with steady lack of rush
Except for those two times a year when the posers for power
Elect to visit madness and wrenching on us to show
Their mastery, even of time
Still out of reach, she comes closer, now
I didn’t know until I saw her hair and eyes she was
Not a woman, but so like that there’s no other word
Her perfume she changes for me, in different places
In the forest, or in the light
The pavement beneath my feet, even, gives off a damp noise of odors
Sweet and foul mixing in tantaline gaiety that rises languidly to my organs
Olfactory and tactile, tactfully inciting me to tacit insight
How can I ever repay her? I have so much, but not a coin
That would shine as bright
The hollowness of the night – I call it the night, but it is only the world –
Rings inside my hollow head and bounces from my skull
In weary pantomime, reminiscent of the world I built there once upon a time
Which, like others of its kind, lies now in ruins
And she touches me
For a moment I stopped seeking, and found what I knew
Must remain lost or be defiled or go mad
The flagrance of her caress stays with me where I go in this world
And though I can never know it
Will not die when I die
2002