Love comes across the field to me, a small bird to land at my feet.

Detail from The Couple, by Louise Bourgeois

It was my work to live through the wound of love.

A child without it, I blindly swam through the murk

to find it. Let me not bore you with psychology.

I could have been born without hands, without tongue.

In the dark I felt for you, my friends, my lovers,

and so often found you only to learn that like heroin

you were merely a door to further longing,

a magnifying lens to set my life on fire. What a blaze.

Now I am old and love comes across the field to me,

a small bird to land at my feet. That does not fear me.