by kenneth koch
i love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut
that will solve a murder case unsolved for years
because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window
through which he saw her head, connecting with
her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red
roof in her heart. for this we live a thousand years;
for this we love, and we live because we love, we are not
inside a bottle, thank goodness! i love you as a
kid searches for a goat; i am crazier than shirttails
in the wind, when you're near, a wind blows from
the big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us;
i think i am bicycling across an africa of green and white
fields
always, to be near you, even in my heart
when i'm awake, which swims, and also i believe that you
are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to
the place where i again think of you, a new
harmony of thoughts! i love you as the sunlight leads the
prow
of a ship which sails
from hartford to miami, and i love you
best at dawn, when even before i am awake the sun
receives me in the questions which you always pose.
