For the first time I understand
why some call despair a sin.
Not that I haven’t felt the terrible if.
Not that I haven’t thought
of walking into the woods and not
returning. The pistol shot. The cliff.
Despair is like the weather. It will
change. Or it will kill you.
I could not feel it again
unless, my love, I lost
proximity to you, whose mind
is like a lens
bringing the world closer
just as it is, and whose skin
is the sublime
measurement of time.