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build for its playpen a roofless Parthenon
    No, I doubt I’d be that kind of father
    not rural not snow no quiet window
    but hot smelly tight New York City
    seven flights up, roaches and rats in the walls
    a fat Reichian wife screeching over potatoes Get a job!
    And five nose running brats in love with Batman
    And the neighbors all toothless and dry haired
    like those hag masses of the 18th century
    all wanting to come in and watch TV
    The landlord wants his rent
    Grocery store Blue Cross Gas & Electric Knights of Columbus
    Impossible to lie back and dream Telephone snow, ghost parking—
    No! I should not get married I should never get married!
    But—imagine If I were married to a beautiful sophisticated woman
    tall and pale wearing an elegant black dress and long black gloves
    holding a cigarette holder in one hand and a highball in the other
    and we lived high up in a penthouse with a huge window
    from which we could see all of New York and ever farther on
    clearer days
    No, can’t imagine myself married to that pleasant prison dream—
    O but what about love? I forget love
    not that I am incapable of love
    it’s just that I see love as odd as wearing shoes—
    I never wanted to marry a girl who was like my mother
    And Ingrid Bergman was always impossible
    And there’s maybe a girl now but she’s already married
    And I don’t like men and—
    but there’s got to be somebody!
    Because what if I’m 60 years old and not married,
    all alone in a furnished room with pee stains on my underwear
    and everybody else is married! All the universe married but me!
    Ah, yet well I know that were a woman possible as I am possible
    then marriage would be possible—
    Like SHE in her lonely alien gaud waiting her Egyptian lover
    so I wait—bereft of 2,000 years and the bath of life.

From The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia
    SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
    My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
    By just exchange one for the other given.
    I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss:
    There never was a better bargain driven.
    His heart in me keeps me and him in one;
    My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
    He loves my heart, for once it was his own;
    I cherish his, because in me it bides.
    His heart his wound receivèd from my sight;
    My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;
    For as from me on him his hurt did light,
    So still, methought, in me his hurt did smart;
    Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss:
    My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
    E. E. CUMMINGS
    i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
    my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
    i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
    by only me is your doing,my darling)
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â i fear
    no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
    no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
    and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
    and whatever a sun will always sing is you
    here is the deepest secret nobody knows
    (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
    and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
    higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
    and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
    i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

To My Dear and Loving Husband
    ANNE BRADSTREET
    If ever two were one, then surely we.
    If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee;
    If ever wife was happy in a man,
    Compare with me ye women if you can.
    I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
    Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
    My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
    Nor aught but love from thee, give recompense.
    Thy love is such I can no way repay,
    The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
    Then while we live, in love let’s so persever
    That,