Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly,
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.

He sits before me now, reptilian, cold,
Worn skeletal with sorrow for his child.
He would have lied to her, were he not old

After the winter thawed away, I rose,
Remembering what you said. Below the field 
Where I was dead, the crinkled leaf and blade 

  Mario for mayor of me, and my glorious city.
  The Mayor of New York should be a nightingale.

The loneliness I felt for you and the loneliness
You felt for me
Was hideous, it was the true hell of love.

Long I have seen those eyes,
Alert, astonished, bright,
Turn softly and survey

When I opened my eyes, a doe was standing only a few feet away from me.

  Everything I love is young. I love you, because you are
young. Satire, Epistle, the glistening inner wing of a redwing
blackbird’s wing, you too are young.
   I am dying young. Horace, young lover of old words,
young new faces, I love you best.

The movement of my body when I wake,
Hinge of my arm, the shift of hand and throat,
Reminds me there was something for your sake