Was our first date really a boxer’s funeral?
You in pitch, me in black—all in all

a noirish affair, how we felt so at home
with those lump-faced men,

the mourners wrapped in silk and onyx
watches, their Stygian raincoats

soaked. And did their tears
heave a river,

a torrent, down Amsterdam
as the organ struck up the Eventide hymn

and something deepened,
and something deepened,

and was it later, or then,
I took your hand in my hand,

so you could feel my stung fist harden?

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