That you exhaust me in my will to love

[joel]

That you exhaust me in my will to love,
then may I be to you for homelessness’
deliverance in all your poverty of care
when harsh frigidity meets up with you;
and may I be for you a vent of sweet
pollution, treasured on the empty streets
that so offend your naked hand, so cold
and blue and want for someone’s hand to hold?
My pure imagination lovely meets
you: you are still and chilled and at your feet
a cardboard plea for help; and slowly through
deficiencies of need you come aware
of surplus love you burned in carelessness—
and in its heat of waste exhaust, know love.