Simone Weil says that when you really love you are able to look at
Someone you want to eat and not eat them.
-Marie Howe, “After the Movie”
What we’re talking, then,
is love and murder. What we’re
talking is pieces
of the heart, places in the heart
where love and murder
might dwell. Myself I’ve never
been quite sure that I love
even the people I love the most,
not in the old high way. Reading
too much Yeats and Keats will do
that to you. Love is action,
says M. Howe, and that seems
some comfort. Finally today
some sun, sharp light
and shadow in the linden
near the window, its new
buds reddish and wet.
I suspect it loves
everything, which according
to Dan Born is just
the same as loving nothing.
I’m almost sure
I’ve never yet loved anyone
enough to eat them.