Reply to Rilke’s “Autumn Day”
(Previously unpublished)
For Steve and Mona Alapi
Love, it is time. Come, lie upon me
like the shadow on the sundial
and over my mouth let your strong mouth
measure the falling minutes. Let us rinse
our mouths with wine of kisses
forced to perfection not by the sun
but by the first frost of autumn.
Then let us sleep and awaken
and write and read in one another’s bodies
long love letters in the script of touch,
and build us a house of love
and together hew a bright pathway to and from
that either may take when after the other goes,
we must walk alone where the last wind blows
shadowless under the equinox.