It became necessary for me to reduce to you to a
face, glimmering or pallid, touched by
shadow, behind that ragged moirè. In that
way alone I could take you with me. I could
present you to the tree, the hill, the rock.
When met by others for whom birth or
choice had marked them as I, I could share
your beauty, elusive image of love and ruin.

        And for all the human tears that I shed
in my solitude, your silent rebuke, distilled
and enigmatic, would comfort me.

       ... the limits of my lust ... bitter anguish
of departures.

   I have little else to give you besides this
handful of sand that sifts through my fingers,
these transient words that crumble away, one
by one, one by one.

         But quiet! If you laugh, I will kill you! If
you laugh, I will leave your body for the
vultures and the ants. And I will burn your
eyes from my memory, so that when your
name crosses my lips your blackened sockets
will flower with pain!

   I idolize your face to violate the absence of
your body.

   I melt into your face the way tallow drips
from the broiling bones — thin and white,
with a bubble of hot air bursting through the
battered membrane.