I would bring out the coffee,
bread and butter, salt, and a piece of fruit.
The pigeons ran around in berserk patterns outside.
Our warm, clandestine complicity had the force of a new actuality.
Many mornings, we drank our coffee without any pleasantries.
At the table, along an axis of real and imaginary numbers, you made
your notes. I loved how true the imaginary numbers could be;
it was much more interesting than life—you could have company
and you could have loneliness in it. Your hardness
and your terrifying honesty could be bitter, but I forgave the bitterness.
Next to all that, my words to you must have the ring of false contrition;
but like a lack of medicine or money, they are sincere.