laura turned into a game for petrarch,
a chase through stone monuments
with green moss new-rhizomed on them
every year
every year he came back to her
and said something new on her face...
i feel wild tonight wild and cyclical
thinking of you
vanesa
of how i would think your name and
feel chasms open like windows in me
and light come up from them
from the molten core of me itself
the earth inside not red but like a sun.
and so my purpose
quite plain
vanesa
i do not re-rewrite your name
but live the legacy
you made in me
and write
what does not pass for poetry