What He Knows

Every night she leaves me
sleeping, Every night she flies
higher and farther
than when I was a boy.
She puts dreams in my head
because my eyes are shut
and she is hoping I won't notice
she is missing, going home again.
But I do, my whole body quivers,
and knows her contempt, ridicule,
knows she has done
what she came to do,
taught me the greenness of spring
the sadness of love,
the smallness of time--
taught me to describe
the things that will disappear.
I occasionally wake, trembling like a bird,
when my body feels her deceit;
But now she has done
what she came to do
and the terror of her absence--
Only that is left.