We're two

dark colliding

  moons orbiting

some planet I was

  pleased to see

you seemed to sleep

  soundly I'm

orbiting my future

  husband So

you slept here

  I don't know

what bitter orb

  you're circling Or

sweet And now

  you're across the

sea Better bitter

  and dark Two dark

colliding moons

  orbiting that dark

planet Oh Be-

  longing I just

can't know Others

  reveal their symbols

on temples' ghostly

  slates or on plum

cheeks Mine hidden

  Two marks low

on my back The truth

  is I've left that place

too Two dark

  charred marks My

night tigress

  Longing Oh Be

loved My night

  lioness I

never liked it

  sweet

____

"To Be Here, Honey" is part of a series of ten poems, collectively titled "What's a Sweetheart." As I was working on the series, I was cutting down language to its needful elements. I had a recurring vision of myself crouched outside a small cottage, tossing pebbles over the threshold. I wanted these poems to be full of breath and pause, hanging together on the barest thread. At the time, I was reading John Donne, Emily Dickinson and John Ashbery and listening to a great deal of Bob Dylan and Neil Diamond. I was living in a trailer overlooking a vineyard in northern California.