M and I sent one another poems. I don't remember whether I was the first to send a poem or he was, but if it was me, he took it as an opportunity for response. I was enjoying the expansion that happens with exchange (indeed, I miss it), and he allowed me my intensity. He rarely voiced his hurt: I had to coax it out. He sent me Kenneth Rexroth's Lute Music, and I countered with DH Lawrence's Elemental. I told him I found Lute Music objectionable. Reading it made me itch. At the same time, I was moved that he might imagine an 'endless epiphany of our fluent selves.' Was it us he imagined? Or just an abstraction that he could use, like an intoxicant? Physically, he said I fit just right, and I did: his embrace was like a glove. But, we were not precious metal. After reading Elemental, he referred to himself as loam.
