place on heart !

Conrad AikenWhy do I look at you? Why do I touch you? What do I seek in you, woman,
That I should to meet you again?
Why must I sound once more your abysmal anothingnees,
And draw up only pain?
Hard, hard, I stare at you watery ayes; yet am not convinced, Now no more than ever before,
That they are only two mirrors reflecting the sky’s blank light,
That, and nothing more.
And I press my body against your body, as thoungh I hoped to break
Clean through to another sphere;
And I strive to speak to you with a speech beyond my speech,
In which all things are clear;
Till exhausted I drown once more in your abysmal nothingnees,
And the cold nothignees of me:
You, laughing and crying in this ridiculous room,
With your had upon my knee;
Crying because you think me perverse and unhappy; and laughing
To find our love so strange;
Our eyes fixed hard on each other in a last blind desperate hope
That the whole world might change.