I loved you badly at best. Still, I want to hear
the story again. Tell it slowly, make it last. Tell me
how we will get married
by the ocean, at your aunt's
house in Cornwall. Describe once more the pebble
beach you'll carry me over
until we reach a threshold borrowed
for custom's sake. How you'll wrap my train
around your wrist like a ribbon.
Remind me of the afternoon we ate fat ripe peaches
under the market's bright awning
and happiness pierced us like scissors.
Take a pencil and teach me again how to write
our city's name in Japanese.
(Not one bit of this is merciful. No one's
kidding anyone else.) Touch my hair again and say
we should have children. Someone
to bury us, someone to sound out our names.