For the hemlocks and broad-leafed evergreens
a beautiful but precarious state of being....
Here in the suburbs of New Haven
nature, unrestrained, lops the weaker limbs
of shrubs and trees with a sense of aesthetics
that is practical and sinister....

I am a guest in this house.
On the bedside table Good Housekeeping, and
A Nietzsche Reader... The others are still asleep.
The most painful longing comes over me.
It isn't for sex or breakfast...

all jokes aside, it could be for beauty—
I mean what Keats was panting after,
for which I love and honor him;
it could be for the promises of God;
or for oblivion, nada; or some condition even more
extreme, which I intuit, but can't quite name.