For Delmore Schwartz

I

I wonder at art and history
Those mysteries borrowing
A woman’s arms
Like honey and blood mixed
What are you now that you
were then?
What face finds art
and keeps it in? Why is Love not a
Woman’s arms
Delmore Schwartz?

II

I have a fear of Plato
and every blue pastel
that threatens my private
blood with eloquence

Compare all thought
to a woman’s hands
and thought is a
colorless thing
without a tongue to
plan to lose
or a death
to give me strength.

Schwartz is brilliant
Stars are blue
that turn and burn
in the absolute,
putting a physics
in the afternoon
and murder wherever
the dogwoods bloom.