Casanova Getting Older by Frederick Seidel

Do they think they are being original when they say
This is a new thing for me to ask, and ask,
Do you love me?
Everyone these days keeps asking,
Do you love me?
Everyone says
This is a new thing for me to ask.

Th answer is yes I don't.
Do you love me?
The answer is yes.
The eyes glisten with feeling.
The creature hath a purpose and its eyes are bright with it.
The sudden pecking of asking, of being asked, is this.
The answer is yes I don't
The heart got the shot but got the flu anyway.
And the body aches, and fever and chills, and can't sleep.

The forest shivers with fever.
Their mother pulls their covers up.
The whippoorwill keeps calling whippoorwill whippoorwill.
Do you love me? Do you love me? I don't love you.
Not everyone is afraid.
Not everyone feels vulnerable.
Everyone is afraid of the terrible joy. I do.
Each other is Mecca.
The hajj to the Other.

Fellini's Casanova, by Vladimir Shinkarev  via