Frequently, when I’m working steadily on a poem over time, two or three shorter pieces will emerge pretty much fully formed. Since the middle of January I’ve been moving a long poem Binners forward slowly, albeit positively, with no clear notion of when or how it will reach full term. And then a week ago the following poem emerged entire, more or less as it is here. It deals with the power of dream and recollection and the way in which sense memory sometimes provides a much more potent representation of the truth of experience than perfect recall.

...

FIRST LOVE

I linger
in the fast-congealing amber
of a dream.

You know of my
sweet breath, my flesh
within the bright convulsion

of the moment.
You wake and my musk
infects the world.