Days of 2000 Valentine

I loved his long red blanket
and to lie under it afternoons
on the cold leather couch
reading of Genji or Virgil’s death
or the moons of Saturn and Venus
I did not lie there alone but
speak now as a survivor
of waves of terror and disbelief
spreading over whole landscapes
their authoritarian glimmerings
heavy things with ears that cut
and stabbed their way to victory
but how by midnight darkness
had overcome it all with rain.