From A Journal

I had a lover once, 

I had a lover twice, 

easily three times I loved. 

And in between 

my heart reconstructed itself perfectly 

like a worm. 

And my dreams also reconstructed themselves. 

After a time, I realized I was living 

a completely idiotic life. 

Idiotic, wasted -

And sometime later, you and I 

began to correspond, inventing 

an entirely new form. 

Deep intimacy over great distance! 

Keats to Fanny Brawne, Dante to Beatrice -

One cannot invent 

a new form in 

an old character. The letters I sent remained 

immaculately ironic, aloof 

yet forthright. Meanwhile, I was writing 

different letters in my head, 

some of which became poems. 

So much genuine feeling! 

So many fierce declarations 

of passionate longing! 

I loved once, I loved twice, 

and suddenly 

the form collapsed: I was 

unable to sustain ignorance. 

How sad to have lost you, to have lost 

any chance of actually knowing you 

or remembering you over time 

as a real person, as someone I could have grown 

deeply attached to, maybe 

the brother I never had. 

And how sad to think 

of dying before finding out 

anything. And to realize 

how ignorant we all are most of the time, 

seeing things 

only from the one vantage, like a sniper. 

And there were so many things 

I never got to tell you about myself, 

things which might have swayed you. 

And the photo I never sent, taken 

the night I looked almost splendid. 

I wanted you to fall in love. But the arrow 

kept hitting the mirror and coming back. 

And the letters kept dividing themselves 

with neither half totally true. 

And sadly, you never figured out 

any of this, though you always wrote back 

so promptly, always the same elusive letter. 

I loved once, I loved twice, 

and even though in our case 

things never got off the ground 

it was a good thing to have tried. 

And I still have the letters, of course. 

Sometimes I will take a few years' worth 

to reread in the garden, 

with a glass of iced tea. 

And I feel, sometimes, part of something 

very great, wholly profound and sweeping. 

I loved once, I loved twice, 

easily three times I loved. 

Louise Glück