19. PRECIOUS WORDS

      Love is now the only ink
      that sets my pen flowing.
That I should be marooned on such an island,
      Tentacles rippling in—sea,
      cut off from all but this rock.
My thoughts, long buried in the soil
of fiery, unsubstantial imagination,
then disurned and carried in—Sun dry as Roman humus,
in lumbering barrows, whistled—behind
      in heavy boots,
      breathed—on by warm sausage breath, stale beer,
      now their own cave—kept lantern.
And you, who I thought never to see again,
Write me this letter of introduction,
Postmarked for the island, to read me,
to caress in me the precious words.