SWEET

river islands five
shades of green a thousand
yellow lights outlining
the bridge that night considered it
all information from allies loyal
as fog and dark roof-light
and map diddle diddle skin
closer than words closer
than skin

• • •

skin
closer than blood closer than blood-ache
than fitted sheet

gray lake mountain laurel hardy
and white

diddle diddle coming in a rubber
raft out in the middle
coming in no hurry yes
in a hurry with a singe and
pop

now
leaping over
soon

• • •

in fact thank you I did
need this hole in the head blown
hole breath blown spirit poured
breath closer than skin closer
than respiration blown hole
spirit poured into mind mind
soaking flesh your breath
closer than perfume closer than
respite

• • •

lash-tongues spit-fire short
wires sizzling hey diddle
riddle when's the lightning
rod not on the roof roof of
that glass pod cliff-hanging over
the bay the way the storm
also came later all
around kiss closer
than flash than
lips than the
end

Poetry ought to tease us with questions. Keats's Cold Pastoral and his ode upon it certainly do. Are unheard melodies actually sweeter than those heard? Is real life, real time love—with its burning foreheads and parching tongues—superior to the eternal anticipation of lovers just about to kiss on the surface of a Grecian Urn? I don't know if Keats or any of us truly know the answers to such questions.

For nearly twenty-five years, I've been trying to figure out how it might be possible to make poetry out of love, the love between my wife and me. One attempted poem after another has failed, badly.

Then, last summer—2000—as I was driving along a stretch of the Susquehanna River, in the relative wilds of Pennsylvania, there was a flash of colors off the water, into the corner of my eye, and it was instantly clear to me that there was a way. It is this "sweet" suite that has resulted, that is the way, and that is still developing.