The old one with the bad breath and his bed all mussed, he smiles and talks to them. He's got some crust. Young Girl Dear love, as simple as some distant evil we walk a little drunk up these three flughts where you tacked a Dufy print above your army cot. The thin apartment doors on the way up will not tell us. Your palms fold over me like knees.
Love is the only use.
Both a little drunk in the afternoon with the forgotten smart of August on our skin we hold hands as if we were still children who trudge up the wooden tower, on up past that close platoon of doors, past the dear old man who always asks us in and the one who sews like a wasp and will not budge. Climbing the dark halls, I ignore their papers and pails, the twelve coats of rubbish of someone else's dim life. Tell them need is an excuse for love. Tell them need prevails. Tell them I remake and smooth your bed and am your wife.