I don’t know one damned butterfly from another

my ignorance of the stars is formidable,

also of dogs & ferns

except that around my house one destroys the other

When I reckon up my real ignorance, pal,

I mumble “many returns”—

next time it will be nature & Thoreau

this time is Baudelaire if one had the skill

and even those problems O

At the mysterious urging of the body or Poe

reeled I with chance, insubordinate & a killer

O formal & elaborate I choose you

but I love too the spare, the hit-or-miss,

the mad, I sometimes can’t always tell them apart

As we fall apart, will you let me hear?

That would be good, that would be halfway to bliss

You said will you answer back? I cross my heart

& hope to die but not this year.