They have been staring at each other for a long time now.
Around them the objects (circa 1980).
Then corridors, windows, a meadow, the _______.
They have been staring at the end of each other for a long 
time now.
She tries to remember but it is hopeless.
She tries the other one—Hope—casting outward
        a bit,
oh but it costs too much.
Either they’re coming for us now or they’re not says Love.
Around them objects, minutes. No said quickly in passing.
Here it is, here, the end of beauty, the present.
What the vista fed into. What it wants to grow out of, creeping,
        succulent…
No No says the voice pinpointing the heart of these
        narrows.
Draw draw the curtain now.
You there in your seat, you there.
Here is the glance, between them, quick, the burning.
Here is the glance afloat—on the back of what, dear nothingness?
Here it is, here—
They’ve decided they’ll feed everything into it and then they’ll see.
They’ve decided they want the rest tight round them now like
        this.
They want to be owned, it is all that can own them.
The look, the look finally free of the anything looked-for,
the hurry finally come unstuck of the hurrying,
something fiery all around like dust or a jury.
You there. They are done talking.
They are done waiting.
Either they are or they’re not, she thinks, hold still.
Something fiery all round—let it
        decide.
It will need us to shape it (won’t it?)       hold still.
And the cries increasingly        hold still.
Like a _______this look between us      hold still.
If, inside, a small terrified happiness begins,
like an idea of color,
like an idea of color sinking to stain an instance, a thing,
like an arm holding a lit candle in a door that is parting,
if, oh if—banish it.
Listen, this is the thing that can trap it now—the glance—
the howling and biting gap—
and our two faces raised
that nothing begin (don’t look away),
that there be no elsewhere,
that there be no elsewhere to seed out into,
just this here between us, this look (can you see me?), this
        look afloat on want,
this long thin angel whose body is a stalk, rootfree,
        blossomfree,
whose body we are making, whose body is a ______
(only quicker, much quicker, a conflagration)
an angel, the last one, the only one that can still live
        here
(while out in the corridor they are taking down names)
(while out in the corridor the shoes purr for the blacking)
the last one, the very last,
alive, yes—yes—but wingless this between, wingless—