GAMIN
All the roofs are wet
and underneath smoke
that piles softly in
streets, tongues are
on top of each other
mulling over the night.
We lay against each other
like banks of violets
while the slate slips
off the roof into the
garden of the old lady
next door. She is my
enemy. She hates cats
airplanes and my self
as if we were memories
of war. Bah! when you
are close I thumb my
nose at her and laugh.
— Frank O'Hara
from The Collected Poems of Frank O'Hara.
© Alfred A. Knopf, 1971
Passion looks not beyond
the moment of its existence.
Better, it says,
the kisses of love to day,
than the felicities of heaven afar off.
~ Christian Nestell Bovee
Love/Life Poems
