I tell my beloved that exactly 
                        where it is hardest to write 
                                    is where I should double down 

and write. Denise Levertov’s poet 
            is brought to speech—what I write 
                      “wakes in [my] demand: the poem.”

We promise, a requisite ache. I teach him how to balance 

            my narrative—the matter of my life 
as he has experienced—with the lyric 
            intensity of my contrapuntal songs,  

when my poems lift like crows
            cawing their prayers—: time stops. Or, 
            how to unbraid my autobiography 

into sections and ply them 
            into images, to lift tense, syntax, 
                        and perspective for a single story 

that arrives at what I want to say—

because I’ve said it. That is the responsibility of
            the writer as advocate: how my moments
            unfold into a life arc 

as a disciplined reader. To control
                        my beloved’s breath as my reader— 
            that’s how I know I command. In writing 

my pardons, I charm my way out 
                            of imprisonment. The “I” that is me,
        writing it, hurts because I question 

       from where the intimacy settles—: a character
                    sharpened by my beloved’s mercy, 
                              by our admitted failures.