THEMES ON LOVE

Grading themes on love at M.I.T.,

one-man Symposium at 3

a.m., across the court I saw a light;

another office-holder working late.

While Plato on a silver pillow rode

above the waves of pre-sophistic prose,

I jotted teacher's notions that were not

as brave as our two lamps against the glut

of dawn. But when I clicked mine off

his too at once was gone, had been

my echo in a distant sheen

of glass; had been my own, and I

was lonely then, and wrote

these English words.