house arrest

Writ large your ravished inventories.
I don't even know your weight.
What took place, already forgotten.
You leave, close the door behind you.

In my tower all around the quaint debris
of my winter campaign, my summer,
under a fine hoary dust.

Anna Akhmatova, you and your death poems.
Everyone saying goodbye, even those who failed
to arrive.

Love is the integer, musk, heat.
I am learning Russian the better to take your pulse.
The better to record it in my blood.