One Hundred and Fifty-Five Sonnets - 66. by loving you

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Sonnet No. 131

As a man engaged, I may see the world

Where differences are insignificant,

And every slander that was ever hurled

Is rendered mute by Love, and irrelevant.

In you can I offer me salvation,

For every act of self-love is forgiving –

Like handfuls of dirt without hesitation

To inter dead flesh by the living.

In you, there’s chance to rise incorruptible

Though my body to that sleep must take its turn,

These words, tenacious and incorrigible,

Will live in Love and continue to learn.

Heart-by-heart, their deliverance will teach me,

By loving you, infinity I’ll see.

Sonnet No. 132

To draw a piece of paper and then write

Poetry of form set, but intent soft,

Makes goal to your intellect and heart delight,

And all the cares you carry to be sloughed.

I make no more demands on your love, but –

From now on it will be fault-free; innocent;

Like your purity of breath, it’s clear-cut

To reward me with boundless nourishment.

Let me take the burdens from your shoulders;

Let me massage them, and let my lips stray,

For verse is limited as enfolders

Of your arms and chest, and what I must say.

“I love you” is whispered into your flesh,

Where your sigh redeems poetry afresh.

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