Late Beauty

James Wood

Too easily, perhaps, I recognize your ways
Ironically composed, now—
And not of hope
As once. Which I recruited from a
Dim high school hallway in 1965. For awhile,
And perhaps evilly, too.
"How unreal it all is" to touch your nakedness
After twenty years, again
In a material world of yours "quite without
Believing further."
Nothing on earth is,
Then, except this hearing your voice,
Seeking your flesh
Which speaks, nay quickens indelibly of you.
Do the heavens give you,
Stepping across a Seattle suburb
In a new, fresh house dress, quite upon this
Street, privately alone
Forever, and forever, and forever. Thus,
In another world?

University of Virginia Virginia Quarterly Review
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University of Virginia
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