Two High Up on a Balcony

“– “Why now, after all this time,
Which is no time at all,
May we not speak of the sublime
and act from soul to sou?”
“Oh lover, lover, so many years
Have come, and come to stay;
If you had tears, and I had tears,
We would weep years away

But words don't weep, and would I love
I had wept years ago;
Now two on a balcony but prove
What one in bed could know.”

– “But what you prove, and what I ask
are not such different things,
For you have made despair your task,
and I my imaginings.

You speak of my stiff fence of bones,
And I your wall of skin,
But though we talk thru telephones,
We both can hear within;

And though my speech may seem abstract,
Both fence and wall are one
And when you think of this as fact
The wall is broken down.”

– “The wall is banished, then, and we
Stand drunk in barren air,
And you laugh in your ecstasy;
But I laugh in despair.

For what we were and what we are
Change us as before;
Now heavens turn round in one big star,
And day is night no more:

Then stand here on this balcony
And wait for dawn, for dawn,
For sun keep you company;
Till then, I sleep alone”” (id, 477-478).