For (Three Valentines)

1.
Arrows make up the
rules as we go along

in the same spot ventursome
of what is if what is is not

cause for anthem nor
garrulous for forms

what should *not* be ethical
we had to have situations

night and day we had
to have some of it?

most of it? all quantity
became quality in our eyes

a merely projected sunset
the products would seem

too human more than
we’d like them to be

anyway, surplus value
notwithstanding your hands

dematerializes every-
thing it touches, my love.


2.
You were the thought-
balloon directing me

my words your faith
in materialism makes

what’s between
our ears like a wall

creates space stars
time as what is on

them crumbles like a
stencil to this sense

see me please oh as what
isn’t is a horizon or rim

not a mission here’s a book
eat it don't read it don’t

judge us for what we are
precariously put the

whole world would dis
appear if not for these

hands touching you once
the world felt heavier for

which color must discover
please tell me you felt

something too because
there was thinking a set

of terms that our love
was somehow necessary.

3.
"number there in love was slain"

No sunset of information or fa
shion or who-you-know or talk

to these glass buildings ugly as
you observe thank goodness for

love or love’s presentiment at
least this time of year even if

we should never be I wanted
to speak of it also its flickering

locatedness its discretion and
difference if we should not

finally say “desire” there are
children we must imagine never

having there are places and there
are place-names divisions like

time is a series of cells beneath
the shipwreck of our breath

could you for instance “kill time”
with me forever or "go to hell"

for love is it your lips the antici-
pation of them which made

the movie start and stop premo
tions of whatever one begins to

recognize as feelings obscurer
places in our screen-life how I

can’t stop thinking about them
once the movie’s started how

ever we decide there must be
blood--*number there in love*.