Sonnenizio with a line from Donne

Sweetest love, I do not go
anymore into dreams that are sweet with meadow,
where wind is sweetest tinged with salt from the sea
and sweeter, upland, where the dead sit wrapped in gauze
and prim as ladies passing sweets at afternoon tea.
And, sweetest love, this is why my exiled nights are spent
planning a sweet escape of my own, into the grass
where first you sweetly took me, then further afield—
the body that aches now not as supple, not even as sweet
as it used to be. What sweetened syllable could bring
the flush of coral back to the throat, sweet mottled shade
on the breast of the bird that sweetly sang and fledged
too early in the year? Sweet pang of sometimes rue: I knew delight
felt sweet and right; then woke, marked by the aftertaste of flight.