Archie Randolph Ammons (18 February 1926 – 25 February 2001 / Whiteville, North Carolina)

I am living without you because
of a terror, a farfetched
notion that I
can't live without you

which I must narrow down & quell,
for how can I live
worthy of you, in the
freedom of you limber engagements,

in the casual uptakes of your
sweetest compliances
if stricken in your presence
by what your absence stills:

to have you, I school myself
to let you go; how terrible
to buy that absence
before the fragrance of any presence comes:

but though I am living without
you, surely
I can't live
without you: the thought of

you hauls my heavy
body up,
floats me around,
gives my motions point, just the thought.