(the swan drifts over the reflection of real ruins around which an architect has arranged lake and trees:)
I am not pure enough to believe in
love, its archaic masquerade. I am
not pure enough to believe its silken
cords won’t fray but
Is there a love otherwise made? Of stone?
Its architecture, yes, toppled in weeds,
though an entablature on slipped columns
remains to frame the inorderable sky.
I could think: Marking a grave. Or
Its austere grace! What time cracks falls away
to reveal a more essential beauty.
The ruins memorialize themselves.
Two might still walk among them hand in hand.
