Sorrento of my dreams–
 
                                            I have returned,
alone, years later, on a business trip–
 
and now it’s Sunday and I watch the loops
a white gull flies.  No matter how I yearned
to speak, to touch you once: you were like stone.
 
Long after now, sea soothes, breezes caress;
the sun dips slowly toward the silent west.
 
All perfect moments are as if on loan,
so fragile, quick.  Saved by memory as best we can,
or art, or dream. 
 
                               We stayed here but a week,
and what a flash and glow back then.  I look
for comfort now at wings, red rays on sand;
 
the hotel hammock sways, as if the earth
has a vast, distant pulse: some fragrant warmth.