“Girl, I love you” — to be said over the telephone at night, then under the moon: she the lonely star, he the crescent beside her. Halfway through, the poem stops declaring and starts thinking: nothing in the world “does not pass with time,” not sunshine, not enmity, not “the time for love.” The consolation is intensity — a sun that shines brightly enough will shine long and “drive the evil clouds from the sky.” A love poem that argues with its own transience. The movement from declaration to questions keeps the poem alive. “I love you” is easy to say; the harder matter is what love means once spoken. The telephone and moonlight make the confession intimate, while the questions keep it from becoming a simple romantic formula.