| HELOISE TO ABELARD
If you were here, my love,
I would tear the pages of my books,
pleat them into baskets for collecting cherries,
the kind that do not bleed.
I would strip the bark from birches
and build a coffin for our fears
clouds would carry it to Rome.
I would turn into a river fluke
to enter the soft soles of your feet.
And I would lie with you
on the stone floor of the chapel,
morning light filtering through panes.
My love, if you were here,
you would fog the cold surface
of my soul with your breath,
and I would turn to you
and say, if you were not
here, Héloise would be writing.
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