Every Night I Cut Out My Heart.

Half A Page--and The Morning Is Already Ancient.

Everything Is Biographical, Lucian Freud Says. What We Make, Why It Is Made, How We Draw A Dog, Who It Is We Are Drawn To, Why We Cannot Forget. Everything Is Collage, Even Genetics. There Is The Hidden Presence Of Others In Us, Even Those We Have Known Briefly. We Contain Them For The Rest Of Our Lives, At Every Border We Cross.

What He Would Say, He Cannot Say To This Woman Whose Openness Is Like A Wound, Whose Youth Is Not Mortal Yet. He Cannot Alter What He Loves Most In Her, Her Lack Of Compromise, Where The Romance Of The Poems She Loves Still Sits With Ease In The Real World. Outside These Qualities He Knows There Is No Order In The World.

How Does This Happen? To Fall In Love And Be Disassembled.

Nicholas Temelcoff Is Famous On The Bridge, A Daredevil. He Is Given All The Difficult Jobs And He Takes Them. He Descends Into The Air With No Fear. He Is A Solitary. He Assembles Ropes, Brushes The Tackle And Pulley At His Waist, And Falls Off The Bridge Like A Diver Over The Edge Of A Boat.