“A breathless Death is not so cold as a Death that breathes.” —Emily Dickinson

I’m no Dante, lost though I may be,
Nor you my Beatrice, just as lost to me.

Yet the passions ring, silent to your ear—
O brooding lyric, lead on! Lo these many years:

In warm ink we poets write
Excuses for the darkness of the night.
–
I dreamt your room where I once belonged,
Where we in solitude thronged,

Two confined, chained soul-to-soul:
In me you sought, and found, parole,

Though living, dying, always chains—mind
The key I held, fumbling, blind!

Will you let me in? I dare not ask.
Sobriety drinks that bitter flask.
–
Outside, in rain, in heat, in snow,
Life passes, tipsy, slow,

And in me rivers, laden, flow—
Carry dreams the tombs outgrow.