To You, My Darling, Whom I Adore

I'm dying of you, my love--
dying of the love of you,
of my dire need for my skin of you,
of my soul and my mouth of you,
of the miserable wretch I am without you.

I'm dying of you and me, of both
of us, of this--
ripped to shreds, torn apart,
the two of us are dying, dying of it.

We're dying in my room where I'm alone,
on my bed where you're missing,
in the streets where my arm goes unaccompanied,
at the movies and in parks, on trams,
in the places where your head rested on my shoulder,
and my hand held yours,
and all of you I know like myself.

We die in places lent to air
so that you can be away from me,
and go to airless enclaves where
I cover you with my skin
and we come to know each other in ourselves,
joy-saturated, without end.

We're dying, this we know, we're dying
together, now, sundered,
each from the other, daily,
molded into multiple statues,
in gestures we don't see,
in our hands that need us.
We're dying, love, I'm dying in your womb
that I neither hold nor kiss,
in your sweet and living thighs,
and in your unending flesh, I'm dying of masks,
and of dark and incessant triangles.
I'm dying of your body and of mine,
of our death, love, we are dying.
In love's pit at all hours,
inconsolable, in sobs and screams
inside me. I mean to say, I call you,
those who are being born, who are coming from behind,
from you, those who reach you, are calling you.
We are dying, love, and hour by hour,
we do nothing but die a little more,
and write and talk to each other and die together.