Prelude to the Sirens

for M.H.

If I could hold my eye against the It --
or yet confront its likeness in the one
I love, still I, too close, would have vanished
as an image toward a stigmatism;

that law -- which in a dream estranges us
from the engraven word -- restores the knife
its seal: the wax, so inward pushed, retains
a guilt of nearness tenderly endured.