She had a box
with a million red bandanas for him.
She gave them to him
one by one or by thousands,
saying then she had not enough for him.
She had languages and landscapes
on her lips and the end of her tongue,
landscapes of sunny hills and changing fogs,
of houses falling and people within falling,
of a left-handed man
who died for a woman who went out of her mind,
of a guitar player
who died with fingers reaching for strings,
of a man whose heart stopped
as his hand went out to put a pawn forward
on the fifth day of one game of chess,
of five gay women
stricken and lost
amid the javelins and chants
of love beyond keeping.
