These poems, these poems,these poems, she said, are poemswith no love in them. These are the poems of a manwho would leave his wife and child becausethey made noise in his study. These are the poemsof a man who would murder his mother to claimthe inheritance. These are the poems of a manlike Plato, she said, meaning something I did notcomprehend but which neverthelessoffended me. These are the poems of a manwho would rather sleep with himself than with women,she said. These are the poems of a manwith eyes like a drawknife, with hands like a pickpocket’shands, woven of water and logicand hunger, with no strand of love in them. Thesepoems are as heartless as birdsong, as unmeantas elm leaves, which if they love love onlythe wide blue sky and the air and the ideaof elm leaves. Self-love is an ending, she said,and not a beginning. Love means loveof the thing sung, not of the song or the singing.These poems, she said....You are, he said,beautiful.That is not love, she said rightly.