To You

I love you as a sheriff searches for a walnut That will solve a murder case unsolved for years Because the murderer left it in the snow beside a window Through which he saw her head, connecting with Her shoulders by a neck, and laid a red Roof in her heart. For this we live a thousand years; For this we love, and we live because we love, we are not Inside a bottle, thank goodness! I love you as a Kid searches for a goat; I am crazier than shirttails In the wind, when you’re near, a wind that blows from The big blue sea, so shiny so deep and so unlike us; I think I am bicycling across an Africa of green and white fields Always, to be near you, even in my heart When I’m awake, which swims, and also I believe that you Are trustworthy as the sidewalk which leads me to The place where I again think of you, a new Harmony of thoughts! I love you as the sunlight leads the prow Of a ship which sails From Hartford to Miami, and I love you Best at dawn, when even before I am awake the sun Receives me in the questions which you always pose. “To You” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 2006 by Kenneth Koch.