Without You – 2

From Songs For the Dead Rooster


The same smells, the same
scented candles, and various other contraptions:
bells, buddhas, new age recordings,
Madame Blavatsky . . .

As for the rest, we left it in perfect order,
the landlady might only have noticed
a couple of stains on the sheets.

Sadly, we don’t know how to do it more neatly.
Angels could do it more neatly,
but they don’t make love.
There’s no such thing as more neatly.

And then someone willed it so that after
a seventeen-month interruption I found myself there again:
the same smells, the same
scented candles, all this pseudo-indian stuff:
mandalas, castanedas, chopsticks, new age
bells and whistles . . .

And a night so long, a loneliness so complete under this ceiling,
and such utter stainlessness
that chances of getting into heaven
are suddenly not too bad.

But they don’t make love there.

WITHOUT YOU - 2