40.

It’s not custom to begin with the couplet

As if love were something contained in a sonnet

No one has figured out how to convert breath

To flesh, to make profession action

And to hear in the silence of the loved

Defiance of all representation.

I can’t pretend to know how to arrange

Words and life in lines like rows of stones

The battles have left, or to count the rain

Like the tears of lovers left or in time

Bereft of what was sure. These plots are too gross

For the pain they felt along the way

And the whisper they caught on the walk

But it’s some kind of trace no matter how pale.