Book of Hours
The retrospective of my life's loves
is likely to reveal:
a coarse forgotten tug from virginity,
the still smoldering mass
of locomotive steel from the head on,
a raging river of near misses,
and now you, like Norwegian winter,
full dark waiting
before the noon hour.
Speaking of extreme north,
there is also, you know,
the distress of summer,
the unrelenting sun
seizing vigils and vespers,
the blinding dominion of all lauds.
The greater part of our mystery
and disassembling,
that delicious release
of bone from muscle and mind from matter,
crammed into two hours
of desperate dark.
I can't say I'd rather.
