When Neruda described listening to Josie Bliss,
His girl friend in Jakarta, peeing in the night
As “pouring a slow tremulous honey,”
Even at twenty I knew he was exaggerating
Or she had some type of infection. Nonetheless,
When I re-read his lines I think tropically
Of the year you and I lived together in college
In an overheated apartment above a furniture store,
The “R” and “N” peeling below our window,
And how one particular evening you returned
With groceries liberated from the IGA
Under the waistband of the velvety pants below
The baggy sweatshirt you wore all that winter,
How you pulled from the bag your sole purchase,
A plastic bear of honey I later licked from your skin—
Sticky as these thoughts of you on my tongue.