A darning egg is good
Of course
Though not exactly what you had in mind.
He meant
To give you
Something better. Growing up,
He learned soon to ask for bread
And take the offered scorpion.
Dusk settles;
It is all the same.
What from the first
You loved
Was his outrageousness, you thought.
After, you
Were pleased
With his pitiful austere desires.
He had grown up in desire, always.
He woke at night, your name
Upon his lips.
You slept, smiling.
A darning egg is good
For socks.
Lodgers make repairs that slip
The mind.
They must.
And you and he are lodgers — never
More than that — waiting to move on
In fear and insufficient wisdom
Groping to
A kind of truth,
A home, a you to love
For good
With talk and laughter and desire.
He meant
To give you
More than this. Much more. But
Take it anyway; you will remember
Him, his one last foolishness.
A darning egg
Is good, and serves.