It was the first book you gave me.

Les Champs Magnetiques , by Breton, Souppault

and I fell into it, a silver fish who had at last

found water, your clear mountain stream,

and I thought of frogs and their teaspoons seeking jars

of baked honey and butterfly wings and all things ridiculous,

writing automatic, so aerodynamic,

the way I would soon and you would soon fly to each other’s arms.

Was it a day, a week, a month? A short-while anyway,

Not long before we were lunching and laughing

as around us the silverware clinked and the waiters moved

as dancers. On the way back to Hort Hall we stopped,

balanced on the curb beneath the shade of a linden.

You had never known the scent of it and I held it to you,

a small offering and gift. You said, “This is like dancing

on one toe at the edge of a cliff.” But we were long past

caring, knowing well we had already fallen, but in that

balmy July moment we spoke of marriage and of work and of literature

and your forthcoming book of Breton, revolution and how

each of us knew what it meant to be held,

magnetic and drawn to a force irresistible.