She asked me to go to bed
Don’t you know we’re better dead?
All beneath a sky like lead
She touched me, said please.

My heart, she moans, is a palimpsest
And the yard full of rot.
We met last spring down in Bucharest

(roofs of red, a gaunt face)

Don’t you know this means naught?

Erasure, debutante;
repetitions of love.