The first time someone called me “sweetheart”,
I sold my library, my piano. I boarded a train
tremulously in the direction of the beach.
I had the transport all to myself.

Lovely enchanting language, sugar-cane,
if you eat too much of it, you want more—
one part surge, another spray. One part the urging
you know by name.

Into this noise sailed
caged birds that sing, birds that talk—
and say that a poet wakes up one morning
for a single, beautiful word.