I would compare you to the ruins of
a lost civilization, even though
you’re not yet twenty-four. The thing is, love
unceasingly surprises; what you know
is never what you know. It’s like, in Rome
what was for many blocks an ordinary
street then turns a bend and, whoa, you’ve come
upon another Rome. The mercenary
past will soldier for imagination,
which is love’s antiquity, its own
preceding architectural creation—
an archaeology that’s dreamed alone
until some ancient god, now bored, creates
from the dream a city, boyfriend, fortune, dates.