A hundred landscapes back the shapes of them
Leaving in their own attitudes. North Carolina.
A stormy morning under heavy elms.
Raincoated for the foul weather, one goes to the post office
Past where I have watched for him from a sad house.
He knows. He walks as if covered,
And I follow him, follow his going
As long as I can, lose him,
Find him out, all the time hiding
Behind a closed window.
Stop.
If he comes back, it will be another way.
One I see off in a gear-mounted truck to Denver
As dawn swims over the farmlands and into the dairies
All over Wisconsin, and moistens the city streets.
He has not slept this night, for working and loading.
He will drive until noon today, beyond Chicago,
And sleep in the truck, unwashed.
He will not kiss in public.
Smiling grittily, I
Am the last stop. He
Will come back sometime, but I will not be here.
After the snow that abandoned the traffic all night
In Times Square, the morning shines bright as lakes,
July, Christmas, knives in the sun, white sheets
Of ice. The lions of stone stare ahead, silent
And blind. He touches my face, oh, cold, and "Goodbye,
Girl," and he goes into stone.
Goodbye, that sings in the ribs.
Goodbye, that the empty vaults
Of the station kill finally
Almost twenty years later.
Though the midday snow still falls on the early dead.
What weather, what lame time of night or day, leaving,
Has taken him who had taken a habit of coming
Any time or weather, wherever I was, desiring
His welcome. He is gone without leavetaking.
His image, hinging on vacancy, stands in the mind
Of itself. If ever I touch
Even the hand of his image,
I shudder. I cannot find
Any way to fasten my heart
Again to the pain-love gone,
The uncomprehending body of love remaining.