when both are strong with tenderness, too wild

with oneness to be severance-reconciled;

when even the touch of fingertips can shock

both to such seesaw mutuality

of hot-pressed opposites as smelts a tree

tighter to its dryad than to its own tight bark;

when neither jokes or mopes or hates alone

or wakes untangled from the other; when

more-warm-than-soul, more-deep-than-flesh are one

in marriage of very skeleton:

when, then, soil peels mere flesh off half this love

and locks it from the unstripped half above,

who’s ever sure which side of soil he’s on?

have I lain seconds here, or years like this?

I’m sure of nothing else but loneliness

and darkness, here’s such black as stuffs a tomb,

or merely midnight in an unshared room.

holding my breath for fear my breath is gone,

unmoving and afraid to try to move,

knowing only you have somehow left my side,

I lie here, wondering, which of us has died.