111. The Business of Love

I don’t care what comfort does, but comfort dies with me, sediment upon sediment, the tiny flakes of life, dandruff, dander, dust bunnies, the skin we lose through any day’s living, flummoxed by the simple act of living, loving, leaving, wondering why the language doesn’t allow every sequence of three phonemes (consonant-vowel-consonant) at least each written vowel a chance to make a word between the two consonants (live, love, leave, lave, luve), luve might work, and it is the business of love that runs a life, reaching for it, to hold, allowing it to take you, setting it up, let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits, we reach a limit, it may be speed, behind a slow car on a highway, I say, “What’s this guy doing? The speed limit?” because life is fast, how a bird falls to the earth from the sky, as if the air itself were falling, and we fall and fail, flailing, trying to catch ahold of something, dreams are made of falling, love is made of dreaming, night sweats in an autumn evening, the cold come in, yet menopause takes you over, regulate your temperature and you regulate your soul, what waxes wanes, and the wind blows in the direction away from which it is coming, windward, leeward, fo’c’s’le, the sail breathes in as the wind breathes out, we are bodies before we are minds, and our bodies contain everything we are, her breasts grew in preparation for her lover, his hands were made for building things but he never did, the surprise that cedar still smells of cedar, her dowry was generous given the expectations of the time, “It is said,” she said, “that it is as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man,” but, he said, “It is more difficult to find a rich man,” she took the spoons, he took the forks, the knives stood alone, sleeping was the antidote but dreaming was the disease, outrageously generous in the ways of parsimony, belle de nuit, human transactions are always economic, my luve is like a red red rose, petals flaking off one by one, the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land, auditory hallucinations are a form of ear cinema, whispering there, every secret is either kept or invalidated, she parked herself on his bed until the light shut off, the candle’s gutter, the rain gutter, I am my beloved’s, and his desire is toward me, borrowing a body for a while, the tip of the finger, the tip of the tongue, typing past midnight without any hope for sleep, as a gay man he believed that anal sex was unacceptable for heterosexuals, nodding off, coming on, the consequences of each sequence of events are secret until there is no hope for avoiding catastrophe, feral cats marking their territory on his porch and searching for love, thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech is comely, thy temples are like a piece of a pomegranate within thy locks, thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies, many girls have the names of flowers, what is a man but a weapon against love, his greatest desire at that point was for deluxe vinyl siding, in love there is no opposing team, constantly inconsistent, dedicated to her happiness, the utensils set as carefully upon the table as an arranged marriage, forks to the right of the plate, love allows for no demands, no rights, occasional wrongs, the way out is forward, the way back is in, swirling ayes, have it repaired by someone who specializes in matters of the heart, the heart keeps the body alive, like the best wine, for my beloved, that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to speak, she screamed in her sleep, at the intersection of desire and respite, continuing in this fashion until a sense of confusion ensued, dogged in her desire for a cat, conscious of the drug’s making him lose consciousness, I am not lightness but something real, goblets reserved for the most special soda pop, the division of light into color, division of property into parcels, a box of chocolates is full of surprises, driving to Carmel, there was almost an opera in his voice, boxed and buried his father was gone, in an instant he came to realize, thy neck is as a tower of ivory, thine eyes like the fishpools in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim, thy nose is as the tower of Lebanon which looketh toward Damascus, a strange and wonderful nose, realizing that she knew nothing about him just at the point of marriage, her horse drawings could not replace the horses she desired, never angry but always upset, he would cart his books upstairs in the honest delusion that he would ever find them again, what we gain from others is whatever we lose from ourselves, alone but looking not to be, “See that?” he said, “One day she will all be yours,” and years ago this land was the sea, the season for love is life, many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it, we continue because we intend to, he meant that three were too many, and women as well, water would quench if thirst for water were the issue, yet the newspaper was empty of information on the most important events of her life from the day before, until he turned five he did not understand how he lived in the world separate from everyone else, or there were all the reasons not to, thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor, thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies, a laugh like lilting, she could knit it back together like a wound, “What was the sound of water evaporating?” he asked her, a kind of flower but one he knew only by name, her name was simple but direct, traffic in the circle was tentative, a tenuous hold on him, attenuated sense of her, they could almost hear it, he believed in no religion because he was saving himself for reality, she had to make sure, he had to assure, let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth for thy love is better than wine, she cried when she was alone or in the shower, a romantic sense of what a bower might be, he was stronger than she let on, he let go so that he could watch himself fall through the rafters of his dream, he felt like a bird, she looked like a bird, they called him Robert for no particular reason, there are no grounds for love, the sink filled with the scent of coffee after emptying the pot down the drain, a long whistle of the train as it left the city for someplace else, I am a wall, and my breasts like towers, then was I in his eyes as one that found favor, he could not scale her so he was never sure of her size, sticky like an eye at the first moment of waking, physically shaking at the news, their house surrounded by cats and the voices, he had only three choices, the best beef is the most tender, the tenderest cut, slice into a heart and you will find nothing of desire there, the air, the air, the air, thou art all fair, my love, there is no spot in thee.