You picked up half-price cuff links
spread your stained shirt with baking soda
there we were the provincials
greeting the seasons in darned shirtwaists
our hearts thrilling
with secondhand sorrows
from novels with covers
like wax dolls in embers

we puzzled over a cummerbund
“this clasp is like
the clasp around the Torah”
I was afraid
I wanted to grasp your ankle
and pull it close damp thing full of pulse
the snow just above the street
restless in a horn of light