Autumn in Firenze after midnight
On a side street you breezed
Around the corner in an auburn cape
That matched your hair and boots;
...
While pondering what’s left of my future today,
I involuntarily breathed a sigh;
A heavy sigh, with an atomic weight of
One Twelve, by coincidence
...
Sleep comes more easily to me now,
And while I do not welcome death,
She has become a nodding acquaintance.
I watch her among rows of empty cubicles,
...
Is there a soul’s iridescence
Taking on the hue of this world,
Reflecting it back
In resolute affirmation,
...
When I have crashed
For the last time,
Will the one sent
To sift through wreckage
...
On this subject,
No one speaks
With any authority:
No one can tell you
...
If I have lost faith it is because
Faith has been stolen from me;
I’ve been a mark, swindled and duped—
Not having squandered faith,
...
The answer is yes, but perhaps not yet,
And then more than you can imagine now;
For prohibitions melt, restrictions vanish,
The word “no” dissolves between the spans
...
We are none of us strong as we think
Nor weak as we seem or might soon be;
We walk along this wet, pebbled shore
Yearning for a noble tide to sweep us out
...
It had snowed all day,
And would snow through tomorrow.
Her mother was there,
Half her family too,
...