it's easy to miss the train
of thought.   up here it's just
an occasional lonesome whistle
floating up behind the sound
of cars of old women driving their
drunk men home, driving their
drunk men methodically home
when the wind turns and staggers
up from the south. on the darkened
balcony a wisp of wind
tickles my deaf ear like a whisper-

moonlight has
arrived with its beautiful scatter
of white lies. there are waving fields
of late grain for the yearly sacrifice--the
goddess rises wounded and elderly, a mere shadow of
her former self.

i received a letter from a man i slept with
a long time ago--sure, come, he says,
for two or three days.  it is the White Nights
so when we walk home at midnight
the world is luminous. i could go with this
blonde man to see the inch-long buddha
trapped behind glass at the Viking Museum..

but i won't go. it's too late now.
in the frozen attitude of naive agony
the fawns in the forest of my heart
are all shot down and turned to stone
like statues, standing alone and
motionless in the city of Oslo.

thank you for the unexpected invitation.
i remember you, Christian, the man
with whom i traveled the stelvio pass;
my heart in my mouth--

here in my rustic living room , i memorialize you,
protected by old ghosts
with burrowing voices.
yes, i remember you
with your hollowed skin like a tin mission
and your sexual desires thumping
like swallows in the attic.

i remember you
with a modicum of warmth
and a great deal of bewilderment. i remember
your white-blonde hair, full of light like your skin.
and i remember your empty heart, your eyes
like blue tunnels to a hollow abyss.

i can't believe you kept my address
all this time.  thank you for the invitation.

i won't be coming back