Bishkek

It's enough for me that you were here
Despite knowing you have disappeared
To Vienna, or the promise of beds in Uskadar,
You, who wouldn't be satisfied and ended
As soft wax for men's melancholy visions.

Is this Chuy? I lived on Toktogula
And rode in broken taxis down soviet lanes
Studded by trees that had lost all glamour.
Sometimes we walked, held hands,
And you would ask about my rootless passion,
my favourite Russian play, my deceit,
and whether you were its end.
And sometimes you would say
That girl you looked at--
do you want to be with her?
You were the priest whose absolution
Conveyed the guilt and the stripes
in one consolidating lick.

It is enough for me that I found you
and loved you and lost love in this place.
And lost my soul, like the German doctor,
Not for evil but self-knowledge.
There was such completeness
In my love for you: it consecrated a city
And its white mountains,
its cracked sidewalks, absurd cafés
And gutters running in icy melt.
I remember nights spent without you
Early morning transfigurations--
Days spent with you locked behind closed eyes
Wishing us to be transforned
into a suitable myth,
Always wishing to wrap a cloth around you,
Take you to the jeweler on Gorky and say,
This is my gold:
How much is her love worth in earthly terms?
It's enough that you were here
and were Loved by me, here.

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