You sent away
your wife and child
from the dank abode
at the peat canal

Away to the west
the parent city
by rail-track
beyond the horizon

We were alone

I fumbled for your story
the bohemian trips
and fights the painter
who stoned himself into the water

The Tibetan hill created
with wheelbarrow and firs
to uplift the swamp of boulders
into Himalayan wisdom

The guru experience

Long ago in another hovel
our portrait session
dissolved into shards
of grey strokes and washes
a nameless rebuttal

I never did it again

Then at night we retired
into our diverse spaces
your farmer’s bedstead
my horse-blanketed trough

Where in winter stood cows

Half-covered I settled in
to the wheezing silence
sinking to the stone age
of Saxony

You came

Without shoes or shirt or jeans
beautifully naked
a natural contract
passed without writ

Which fakir in India
handed you the fire
rushing through you
too hot to touch