The trouble with me is that whether I get love or not

I suffer from it. My heart always seems to be prowling

a mile ahead of me, and, by the time I get there to surround it,

it’s chewing fences in the next county, clawing

the bank-vault wall down or smashing in the window

I’d just started etching my name on with my diamond.

And that’s how come I end up on the roof. Because even if I talk

into my fist everyone still hears my voice like the ocean

in theirs, and so they solace me and I have to keep

breaking toes with my gun-boots and coming up here

to live—by myself, like an aerial, with a hand on the ledge,

one eye glued to the tin door and one to the skylight.