Love's Progress

I. One place: a grottoed recess in Liguria Carved out of rockface by the restless sea; an old in there, a chapel of the Doria, No entry but by boat: that summer, we dallied with lunch and wine and with each other, drunk with the sun and silliness as well, then- towel and swimsuit packed- in freshening weather the boat's too cozy cockpit sealed the spell: much snuggling up, much kissing, smothered laughter curtained in windy valence of her hair, or so we thought, who, unaware till after, were studied by some dozen people there. one bluff old salt, eyes twinkly shrugged, "sould one practice these moonlight mysteries in the sun?" II. So I learned loonier ways, rhymed "dune light...June light..." only, some weeks gone by, to dirge it so: "Seeing our love, the affair of mist and moonlight is water under a bridge burned long ago..." I drawl it now; we laugh and lean together; you wonder "who she was?" no I'll not say, except, it makes no difference if or whether. "Love" was a wisky labial till today. Now love means "you." "you/love"- the two synonymous. Signposts all signal "you" and that's my way. Memory's awash in "you." you've grown eponymous: Places we've been become you. If, I say, Each land we travel were renamed as "You," That name were truer than all maps are true.