Whatever is not there (We are glass house)

Your body 

Hurts me as the world hurts God

- "Fever 103'", Ariel, by Silvia Plath

For you: anthophilous, lover of flowers,

green roses, chrysanthemums, lilies: retrophilia,

philocaly, philomath, sarcophilous—all this love,

of the past, of beauty, of knowledge, of flesh; this is

catalogue and counter: philalethist, negrophile, neophile.

A man walks down the street, taps Newport

out against a brick wall and stares at me. Love

that: lygophilia, lithophilous. Be amongst stones,

amongst darkness. We are glass house. Philopornist,

philotechnical. Why not worship the demimonde?

Love that—a corner room, whatever is not there,

all the clutter you keep secret. Palaeophile,

ornithophilous: I, antiquarian, pollinated by birds.

All this a way to dream green rose petals on the bed you love;

petrophilous, stigmatophilia: live near rocks, tattoo hurt;

for me topophilia: what place do I love? All these words

for... love? (for me?), all these ways to demand belief

in symphily, to beguile and say let us (not) live near each other.

A personal stand on Reginald Dwayne Betts' "For you: antophilus, lover of flowers".