I am crossing the
seven seas
To wash off your
smell
From my
mothball-stuffed drawers that I
open and
close—obsessive-compulsive,
In classrooms and
coffee shops,
Conference halls
and airports,
On the streets or in
bed--
A fresh-rain aroma
of musk and dead roses
brewed in desire
and betrayal,
Suffused with midnight
kisses and racing away
on white steeds in
chivalrous reins.
But I do not know
if all the waters
Of all the oceans
can ever achieve that task,
and I know all I
really need to do is take off
these glasses that
I hold in tremulous hands—
these rose-tinted
glasses that have
made me hope
against despair,
love against
knowledge, want against wisdom.
But oh, I wouldn’t,
I couldn’t
bring myself to do
that,
Though it breaks my
heart every fortnight
into slivers of
china on a varnished floor;
Because then, when
I am happy,
the whole world wouldn’t be New York.