Marginalia

Few can remember
clearly when innocence came
to a sudden end,
the moment at which we ask
for the first time: am I loved?

***

Fear and Vanity
incline us to imagine
we have caused a face
to turn away which merely
happened to look somewhere else
(after Erik Eriksen)

***

True Love enjoys
twenty-twenty vision,
but talks like a myopic.

--Auden, 1965-68